


Under Pressure

by Gearsmoke



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Character Death, Child Abduction, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, OC death, Paganism, Palling Around, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Supernatural Beings, Violence, do not post on other sites, not to be shared on other sites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 21:10:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20767010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gearsmoke/pseuds/Gearsmoke
Summary: Toki is a bit of a monster.  But he's not the monster Skwisgaar should be concerned about.What starts as frustrated bickering between bandmates becomes a wild excursion into the Scandinavian wild, an an encounter with the supernatural.This was written several years ago, and I'm uploading it as is.  I'm sure I'll be horrified when I reread it at some point.





	1. Sections 1-10

Under Pressure

1  
(_Adapted from Swedish)_

The boy has become insufferable. For years he’s tormented me, yet I’m the asshole, I’m the sharp-tongued cold-hearted jerk who makes him pout and sulk and suffer. Oh, he’s very nearly got them all fooled – or at least as much as they want to be – but they know it, deep down inside, as much as I do. Toki’s not as innocent as he acts.

I don’t even remember how or when it started, but I became aware at some point that he had a crush on me, of what kind I wasn’t sure, and in all honesty I still am not. The glances, the brush of skin on skin, the occasional wordplay disguised as poor English, the way he’d just turn up shirtless when I offered to help him with some extra lessons... It just goes on.

And do not get me wrong. I am not gay, but I am willing to be open to opportunity… and I was attracted to the boy – he is strong, handsome, and has this sweetness… It charms at first, but slowly cloys when you find out how he doesn’t learn, doesn’t grow. It is a naivete that he will not let go of, so he does stupid things, pretending not to know what’s wrong.

I would have given him whatever he asked for if he’d just ask. But he doesn’t. He flutters around me like a moth, just out of reach, luring and then pushing me away, leaving me in an emotional and sexual purgatory. I’ve offered, and he refuses, reacting with a fearful homophobia… he’s not like that, he’s not gay, he likes girls, he insists.

But we come from such different worlds: I from a modern Sweden where one’s sexuality is merely a colour in a full spectrum of traits that make up a human being… Though I am from what the Americans would call a ‘hick’ background, I never hated homosexuals, or feared experimentation. And Toki, well, he was raised in fear, in the darkest habitable part of the world, not only with its months of sunless winter, but without any sense of love or understanding for anything outside of his parents' religious beliefs.

And I feel sorry for him, I really do. When I see his eyes turn stony at a memory, when I see the scars on his back and wrists. It makes me hurt for him… but he will give me nothing, no way to soothe that empathic pain. Despite his desire to be ‘dark and brutal’, to live up to the band’s ideals, he still has a deeper need to be someone’s good boy, to garner the praise of an authority figure. The problem is, if you offer him hope and fail to give him what he needs, as everyone who’s tried has, he will turn on you; violently, and with a strange sadistic glee. Under the childlike smile and cheer, he is colder than I could ever be. And I understand, it’s hard not to be that way, just to survive what he’s been through… but the way he teases, it’s cruel.

It’s only gotten worse lately, since certain dramas have unfolded, unearthed old wounds and brought my emotional state to light. He’s driven me to distraction, and I admit I have done nasty things, abused him verbally, played tricks on him to get my revenge. I never said I was a very good or mature man… but I have a soul, if Hel has not claimed it by now.

What else could I do? I did what I thought was right.

Our drummer is an escapist, the oldest and most aware of all of us, he has the greatest burden of unhappy memories, and does his best to avoid carrying it. But he’s a thinker, obsessively working things out in that big shiny head. He clucks over us like a mother hen when we have problems, figures them out and redirects us so we don’t self-destruct. It’s a lot of responsibility, and he is not the most stable human being to begin with, so I can’t begrudge him his chemical dreams.

Pickles is also involved with our singer, though I haven’t figured out the depth and seriousness of that… it is enough to say that they sneak off to make noise together on a pretty regular basis. Whatever it is they have, it has made the both of them more pleasant people to be around. It’s not Metal, and there’s worry the savage nature of our music may suffer, but I think we’ve all suffered loneliness enough for a lifetime of angry songs.

So I feel safe talking to Pickles. He’s seen this before; he knows what it feels like. I need to talk to someone who understands. When I seek our drummer out, he is in Nathan’s company, which is as to be expected, but inconvenient to me. They are near inseparable, and Nathan has a tendency to follow Pickles around like a great oafish dog, but at least his naivete is honestly come-by. Our vocalist is a man of some common sense when he wants to be, and though not brilliant, he is the most responsible and stable of all of us, so I suppose it’s good he’s the leader. I think I could be a good leader, if I tried.

With the two of them together, a decision needed to be made quickly. If Nathan knows I want to talk to Pickles privately, he will become annoying about it. He is curious, jealous and stubborn, I suppose I can sympathize with that, but he will bother us both to know what we were talking about. So I choose to talk to them both about the situation. It’s just as well, I felt, since Nathan is the leader, after all. These things are what he considers his business, no matter how the rest of us feel about it. In some ways it’s nice to have someone around who pays attention like that, who keeps tabs on us, but when it’s your peer, it’s always obnoxious.

Pickles already suspected what I told him, so I mostly had to explain for Nathan’s benefit. Of course he was difficult, he’d built up denial about what he’d seen at a subconscious level, and that is always hard to break. He wanted Toki to remain sweet and innocent, and more importantly, heterosexual. Thickheaded son of a bitch that he is (And if you’d met his mother you’d agree!)

Eventually though, the evidence became strong enough to bring him around. *

2

“So what exactly do ya wan’ us ta do?” Pickles was rolling a joint on the back of an old Tangerine Dream album cover. Typically, he needed some help to think clearly, even on his good days. Of course they’d all smoke it, to relax and approach the problem calmly. Skwisgaar didn’t consider himself a heavy drug user, despite having one ‘minor’ habit, which had kept him willow-slim despite his lush and lazy lifestyle.

Nathan was, as usual, first with the cut and dry solutions. “Should we fire him?”

“No… no, I don’t wants dat.” Skwisgaar replied, “Maybe just talks to him? Lets him know dats you know whats am goings on, tell him he shoulds go sees de tears-a-piss?”

“You mean Twinkletits?” Nathan’s expression was doubtful.

“Ja, maybe he gets scares straights.”

“Dood, deat’s pretty… y’know, it’s like yer punishin’ him fer havin’ feelins.”

The blond groused at that, “WEIRDS feeling! What I have to do to stop?”

“No, yer reet, we gahtta put an end ta dis. So… who is gahnna tah’k ta him?”

Instantly, Nathan had input, “NOT ME!”

“Well I tries alreadies and he don’ts listken to annytings I says.”

“Can we do this, though? I mean what about…”

“If you bring up deat stupid pact agin, I swear ta Hades ah’m’na shank ya, Nate.”

“Okay, but I’m still not doing it. What about Charles?” Without it even needing to be said, Murderface was out of the question. The bassist couldn’t even get a dog to stop humping his leg. Nathan suspected he liked the attention.

“I don’ts tink he will listken to Charlies. De man don’t got de goods … anh, you know… when you talks to someone and dey ams like… ah… make a connections wid’ dem?”

Nathan supplied, “You mean he’s a robot.”

“Ja.”

“So… I guess it’s me.” Pickles smirked, he knew from the moment the guitarist brought it up that it was going to be him. Still, even with the drummer’s easygoing and personable nature, it wasn’t going to be easy. “Nate… I reely could use ya wit’ me. Jest in case, ya know?”

Skwisgaar glanced at Nathan, “We shoulds all goes. I needs to be dere anysways.”

“Yeah, okay. As long as I don’t have to, uh, you know… talk.” The singer was okay with just being backup. “Are we doing this right now?”

“Yeh, Skwis? Dis is yer deal, do ya wanna do it tonight?”

The blond thought about it for a moment, “Maybe… we cans does it tomorrow, after we has dinners? Dats ways we know where he is, and also… how he is… de mood he ams in.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Nathan had started petting Pickles without thinking about it, then stopped abruptly when he remembered he shouldn’t do that with other people around. The drummer pouted at him, he’d been enjoying that.

“Ah… I uh, I shoulds go, den. Go to mine room, gets some sleeps.” Skwisgaar knew when he was cramping someone’s style. “I sees you guys tomorrow, ah?”

“Yeah, g’nite Skwisgaar.” Pickles said absently, already nudging the big vocalist for more attention.

The guitarist smirked and left them to their distractions. As soon as he left Pickles’ room, he felt a stifling anxiety, the night ahead was going to be long and restless, he wasn’t going to get any sleep until they put this bullshit to rest. Skwisgaar knew he really shouldn’t have been surprised when Toki came after him, catching him in the stairwell on his way back to his room. As if something preternatural had told the Norwegian that the object of his fixation was passing by.

“Skwisgaar! Waits! I needs for to talks to you!” Toki noticed how the taller man flinched slightly, tensed when he came up behind Skwisgaar and grasped his hand. “Comes wit me, I needs you to gives to me help, please?”

“Not now, Toki, I’s… Tired, I gots to gets some sleeps.” Skwisgaar pulled away gently.

“But Skwisgaar… It ams inporskants.” To him, at least. Toki looked up at the Swede with wide, sad eyes. The ol’ puppydog routine, he knew its power well. With a grunt of exasperation, the taller guitarist gave in, following Toki back to his creepy little windowless room.

“_You have to promise_,” Toki insisted in Pidgin Scandinavian, locking the door_, “You won’t tell anyone what I’m going to tell you_.” He opened a drawer, taking something from it.

“I don’ts got to promisk notting.” Skwisgaar’s bastard English reply was cool.

“PLEASE… please… Skwisgaar!” Toki pleaded, holding a bundle of envelopes to his chest.

“_You’re a whiner, Toki. Just show me, I won’t tell unless I have some good reason to. I will do that_.” Skwisgaar waited, not sure if the other guitarist would accept that.

“Ja… okays.” He laid the envelopes out, six in total, the last one being a larger package. “_I’ve been in contact with members of my mother’s family. They are very religious, and they want me to return to the village for Veturnætur_.”

Frowning, the blond shrugged, “So?”

“_I said I’d go_.”

“…_Why would you do that? That’s stupid. You hate them_!”

“Ja, but deys am mine families, Skwisgaar. I saids I woulds go, and I’s going to plays dese tradiskional songs for de feasting.” Toki pulled a sheaf of paper from the large envelope, sheet music.

“So? Whats is de problems?”

“_I can’t read music, Skwisgaar. I know you have trouble with it but at least you could help me learn these songs. I’d ask the others, but they wouldn’t understand why I want to go, they’d try to stop me_.”

“You t’inks I won’t? I don’ts t’ink you shoulds go eidder.” Skwisgaar picked up one of the letters.

Toki squirmed. “But you understands why.”

The blond Scandinavian did understand. As the only other non-American in the band, submerged in a foreign culture, he too often got nostalgic for his homeland. It must be even stronger in someone so much younger and less traveled than himself. “Ja… What’s dis? Is in Danish?” He tossed the letter aside, “You’s fambly lives in de eighteen hundreds.”

“I knows. Dey needs me, Skwisgaar.”

“_We have time, Toki. Winternights isn’t for months. You can think about it, right_?” Though he didn’t like saying so, he would worry about Toki being so far away, alone, without him there to keep watch. He wasn’t considering going WITH the Norwegian, was he? No… no… maybe. In the middle of that thought, Skwisgaar felt the younger man brush up against him, bending to pick up the letter he’d dropped. A muscular arm pressed lightly against the blond man’s thigh, silken hair draping against his wrist… Glancing down, the lead guitarist tensed, thinking, ‘he didn’t need to touch me. He’s doing it again… stop it. Don’t let him get to you.” And then those glacier eyes looked up at him, and Skwisgaar broke, turning on his heel.

“Don’ts go, please?” Toki reached out after his bandmate. He knew he did something wrong, said something… The worry and chagrin were in his tone, but Skwisgaar had to escape. The Swede’s heart was beating a riot all the way back to his room, his sanctuary.

Why did it have to be like that? Skwisgaar shook, clutching his thin arms, furious with frustration. It was because he couldn’t have Toki that the man infatuated him. It was nothing more than that, being foiled, being denied. He had become as obsessed as his counterpart, only he knew it. And he was becoming fixated on breaking Toki as he had been broken. Intervention be damned! He’d go to Norway… and he’d make something happen, or kill them both trying.

3

Of course, Skwisgaar really didn’t have a lot to worry about. He knew all too well what Toki was like, and as soon as Pickles pulled the younger guitarist aside to speak to him, the Swede and the Floridian flanking him, it was obvious how the discussion was going to go. They’d corralled him into a small stock room half-full of plastic bins and cardboard boxes, no windows, just a lethargic fan behind a vent in the ceiling, humming lazily.

“Will ya jest listen?” Pickles was already exasperated, he’d reached a stalemate with the boy.

“Noes! You guys gots to all gangs up on Toki! You t’inks… you tinks I ams just dumb kid what don’ts knows notting, well I do! I don’ts gots to takes dis from yous! You don’ts tell me what to do!”

“We’re naht accusin’ ya of…” Once again the drummer was interrupted by pointless defensive yelling.

Skwisgaar cut in, “Toki! Just listkens… please.” That last word fell from his tongue and broke the younger man’s tantrum. “I just wants you to be awares… of dis, I gots a problems.”

“Ja. Ja _you_ gots a problems. I’s not repopsicle for yous problems.” Though not yelling anymore, Toki was still angry, still unable to understand why he was being cornered and harangued like this.

“Well, uh,” The drummer tried to cut in, “Deat’s kinda what we’re tryin’ ta tell ya, Toki… it sorta is dis time. Cos yer like… naht aware of what yer doin’.”

Toki whined, “I know what I’s doing!”

“So you does dats on purpose?”

“…Does whats, Skwisgaar?”

Pickles sighed… “Fer fuck’s sake…”

In the background, Nathan just stood there quietly, feeling uncomfortable, having no other purpose at the moment than to block the door. Watching the way Toki mentally danced around the issue, flatly refusing to understand or acknowledge what they were trying to tell him, the singer became aware of how obvious it had been. Why hadn’t he noticed this before? Because he didn’t want to… That’s one of the things that let the band tolerate each other. People like them wouldn’t be able to work together if they didn’t all have selective attentions. If someone noticed every time Murderface reeked of blood and Bactine from self-inflicted cuts… The way Toki would smile and waver after spending hours in his poorly ventilated room with an open tube of model glue… Skwisgaar’s slow wasting-away from his own bad habits and lack of sleep. Hell, Nathan knew he’d be mortified if anyone said anything the last time he had to pretend he hadn’t just found one of someone’s ginger curly hairs in his teeth.

They could only keep Toki there for so long before he started trying to escape. Of course he knew as well as anyone it was going to be hard to get around Nathan, so he resorted to whining and kicking boxes, “Just lets me goes to mine rooms! I promise I won’ts be friendlies to Skwisgaar or stands next to him or whatevers you wants!” Glaring accusatorily at the other guitarist, as if asking why he was being so mean, so unreasonable. The Swede ground his teeth and said nothing.

Pickles was still trying, his tone snarky and nasal out of frustration, “Tohki, yer naht… Toki! It ain’t aboht bein’ friendly! Will ya stahp… Angh!”

“Dis ain’t wort’ it, Pickle. It is not goings to does nottings. I don’ts even tinks de tears-a-piss can helps him.” Crossing his arms, Skwisgaar watched Toki pace and complain. “Nat’ans? You wants to says somet’ings here?”

“No. That’s okay.”

“Huh… well. Toki.” Snapping his fingers to get the angry Norwegian’s attention, “We’s goings to leaves you all alones den. Is dats what you want?”  
  
“Ja? … No! Just stops tellsing me lies about what I doesing! You’s wrongs, but… you’s still ams mine friends, I’s sorry for whatsever I does! Don’ts leaves me!” The younger guitarist pouted, looking for sympathy. Moving right up to Skwisgaar, he glanced at the tall blond from under his fine, light eyelashes. This time, even Nathan noticed the body language, the unspoken flirting in that look.

The singer grumbled, “Fuck… Toki… Seriously?”

“Dis is rediculous.” Pickles was done, he just couldn’t handle it. Nudging Nathan in the side, the two of them moved out of the doorway. “C’mahn Nate, we can’t help ‘em.”

“You’s leavings?” Skwisgaar’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You’re leaving me here, alone with him!?’ he thought, read plainly on his face.

“Sahrry dood, yer gahnna have ta figure dis one out ahn yer own. I gaht nottin’.” The drummer shook his head, dissapearing into the corridor, with his faithful vocalist following him. Nathan only paused to give the two Scandinavians an apologetic glance, but he didn’t want to be there at all, much less without Pickles.

With nobody stopping him, Toki marched out of the stockroom a moment later, giving Skwisgaar a withering, betrayed glare. He ignored the Swede when the other man called after him, too angry to talk. The lead guitarist was a joke, he thought, he couldn’t face Toki on his own so he had to get the other band members to gang up on him!? What kind of bullshit was that!? Maybe he’d just go to Norway for Winternights and stay there! That would teach them to appreciate him…

“Oh…” Toki realized, stopping mid-storm. What if they replaced him? What if they didn’t really care if he left? He wasn’t Skwisgaar… they probably wouldn’t follow him to the snowy taiga of Norway to bring him home. He sighed, torn between reasons, anger and fear. He wondered what it would be like to have someone to hold and comfort him at times like this. The idea appeals to him so much… but in his life, in the cold and barren wasteland of his parent’s love, he’d never truly known that. Now it was something alien, confusing and painful. And when Skwisgaar tried to give him anything like that kind of friendship, it hurt and frightened him.

He was also aware of the special relationship between Nathan and Pickles, although he didn’t understand it. It seemed so unlikely that two people could be so close, so comfortable with each other, and yet not give up who they are. He envied them what they had, and tried so hard to accept it, but he’d always known that kind of love as wrong, sinful, a path to ruin and destruction that would spread and taint everything around it.

His parents had beaten the message into him, shaken him and pointed out haggard alcoholics and tattered homeless, saying ‘look, that is where Sin leads you.’ They were like the walking dead to a young boy’s eyes. Hollow-faced corpses in fetid rags, wandering without purpose or hope. He was terrified of becoming one of them, told himself no temptation would ever drag him down like that. So despite abandoning his parent’s religion, the crosses and runes and symbols of the old faith and new, abandoning prayer and ritual, deep inside he still believed, and he followed the steps of an old, superstitious dance.

4

Of course, the lack of resolution worked well for Skwisgaar’s intentions. Since he’d made the decision to go to Norway, Toki’s behaviour stopped bothering him. Having formed a solid plan gave the lead guitarist a sense of unflappable serenity. Even when the Norwegian became more brazen, more obvious, it couldn’t make him angry. Skwisgaar was going to do something, it was just a matter of time, and each awkward attempt to get his attention was just encouragement.

For weeks they played together, Skwisgaar patiently deciphering the Dutch notations and sheet music for Toki, teaching him the old songs intended for acoustic guitar on his unplugged Explorer. It was difficult to play slowly enough, the old melodies weren’t exactly Thrash, but in time they both learned. Once the younger guitarist got the hang of it, the Swede decided to broach the subject on his mind.

“I wants to go wit you to Norway.”

Toki fumbled on his strings, “You does? … Why?”

“Someone you knows should goes wit’ you. Someone who can looks out for you. I don’ts t’ink you should go dere alones.”

“I won’ts be alones, Skwisgaar. I gots mine family dere.”

“Pfff. Fambly.” Skwisgaar switched languages. “_The family who let a young boy run away from home and didn’t even bother to look for him until he became famous? The ones who consider you a lost lamb seduced by Satan?_ We ams yous fambly, Toki. Me and de odders. We ams de ones what looks out for you.”

“_Thank you. _ _But I don’t know how they’d feel about me bringing an outsider, they’re kind of protective of their ways. This is my heritage, my only roots to the Earth. I should keep contact with it, shouldn’t I_?”

“_Should you? I’ve felt the scars on your back, they are your heritage. I don’t need to go to the ceremonies with you, but let me come to Norway, I will stay out of your way, but at least I will be there_.”

“Fines, if you wants to come, you comes.” Toki smiled, he was actually glad for the company. He’d been nervous about going alone, for the same reasons Skwisgaar had mentioned, but felt he needed to be brave. Now he could be brave and still have someone he knew at his back. “We leaves de Ten of October, and we comes back on de Five of November.”

Skwisgaar nodded, he’d expected it to be a long trip. “You tells de odders yet?”

“Nej. I just says I goings on vacations. I tells Offsdensens, he don’t likes it but he lets me go. He gonna tell de guys what I do after I’s gones.”

Rolling his eyes, the Swede snorted, “Ahh, Toki, you’re a coward.”

“Ja, but is better den yellings.”

“Well I’s sorry but I gots to tell dem where _I_ am goings. You didn’t tinks of dat, ah?” The blond smirked.

“I don’t knows you was gonna go! Don’t tells dem, Skwisgaar… dey’s gonna gets all angry!”

Chuckling, the Swede patted the other Scandinavian’s back, “Oh, don’ts worry, I just goings to say I goes on vacations wit you to keeps you out of troubles. Don’t wants you getsing all drunk and trowsing up on some poor Norsk lady’s boobs ah?” That got a laugh, and Skwisgaar liked hearing it. How odd, he thought, everything that was annoying when he was repressing himself has become oddly endearing. This must be what the women who pursue him find so appealing… aside from that tight, smooth body, of course. Oh good, he thought, now he’ll be thinking about that all night. “I guess I should start t’inking about packing, ah?

“Still gots two weeks almost, you don’t gots to packs now.” Toki pouted.

“Okay, den I should go gets a drinks and watch scary movies in de livings-room. You wants to comes wit me?”

“Ja.” So of course, that’s what they did.

Part 2

5

_(Adapted from Swedish_.)

We leave tomorrow for Etnedal, to spend Winternights with some of the coldest people I could ever imagine meeting. I am packing plenty of woolen clothing and a heavy eiderdown parka, but nothing will keep me warm on this trip. Every day that’s passed has been a chilling step towards something I can only describe as deep dread. The only reason I’m going at all is for Toki, knowing he needs me. I am used to snow, I used to love it as a child, but Toki comes from a wilder, darker country, where it gets truly bitter in the winter. His family has a farmstead in the nearby countryside, but I will not be going there. The farm, or ‘compound’ as he calls it, is actually closer to Lillehammer than where we are staying, however we decided to avoid the larger city, which will be packed with American Tourists this time of year, and neither of us need that stress.

Still, I am increasingly anxious, I’ve spent the last six days going through all my clothing, all my travel gear, planning what I’m going to take with me, but it’s really just busywork to consume time until our departure. Anything to keep my mind off what I’m planning to do, and the long nights I’m going to have to wait, have been enduring, until the right moment comes. I’ve seduced hundreds in my life (Not thousands as shock reporters might have you believe, I am not ashamed either way,) but this is going to be the greatest challenge yet… To bring someone to terms with a desire they have so deeply denied for so long. He may resent me for it; he may even hurt me. That’s alright, I can hurt him just as well.

For his part, Toki has been very good about learning those old Norsk songs. And patient with me, and my frustration over not reading music – or Danish for that matter – very well, but at least the written language is close enough to Swedish to be understandable. Even though it takes him a while to get them right, Toki understands the notes from the very first time I play them. I am envious of his ability to learn and improve, whereas I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over my inability to read music or speak English any better than I do now. It is a learning disability, and it is really too bad that Toki mimics me in that, because he could improve if he wanted to.

As for the music itself, I’ve never been a fan of folk songs, but hearing them over and over has lodged them in my head, charmed me with a sense of my own childhood, or what I wanted my childhood to have been like. I’ve found myself humming them on occasion, but luckily our American bandmates don’t recognize them, have no interest, and don’t bother to ask.

Etnedal is a world away. It’ll be strange not having the others around. We are alone in the world, the five of us, unique creatures isolated on a mountaintop. As powerful as Gods, and as helpless as mortals. I hope the Americans will be alright without us. *

6

Toki watched out the window as black-clad Klokateers prepared the jet for takeoff. He’d heard that people look like ants when you’re on an airplane, but they were still on the ground, and their hooded servants more resembled large birds, crows, trotting back and forth across the tarmac, carrying bags and boxes and various pieces of equipment. Not only the things the two guitarists were bringing along, but supplies for the jet crew.

One bird was different from the rest. He approached the craft calmly, his dove-grey plumage crisp, eyes glowing spots of reflected light. The crows parted around this one, careful not to ruffle him as they scurried back and forth.  
  
“Charlies came out to sees us off.” The Norwegian nudged his blond companion.

Skwisgaar looked to humor Toki. He could easily spot their manager; the small, self-possessed man in the expensive gabardine suit was a stark contrast to the burly, sweaty black-clad hoods. “Ja, he does.”

The CFO boarded the jet, finding the two musicians settled in the cabin. “Hello Skwisgaar, Toki. I just came to go over some last minute stuff, just want to ask a couple of questions to make sure the trip goes smoothly, alright?”

Two voices: “Ja.”

  
“Okay. Firstly, I’m sending two plainclothes guards with you. They’ll stay out of your way, but if you find yourself needing their help, they’ll be there. You can get their attention by talking about ‘Jake and Ron’. Can you remember that?”

“Ja.”

“So you’ve got your updated passports, traveler’s cheques and credit cards?”  
  
“Ja.”

“And you have everything else you need? You brought your medication, Skwisgaar?”  
  
This time, only one “Ja.” Toki was looking at the older guitarist, eyes curious and concerned. The younger guitarist wasn’t aware of any medication, not that Skwisgaar had considered it anyone’s business but his own. However, evidently their manager hadn’t known he’d neglected to mention it to the band.

“Okay, so I’ll see you in a month… have a good trip.” Charles ducked out of the cabin, had a few words with the pilot and copilot, and then left the plane. Toki could see him walk away, already talking to someone on his little streamlined cell phone.

Skwisgaar frowned. He wished Offdensen hadn’t brought that up. There was a long, awkward silence, and for a while the lead guitarist thought maybe, hopefully, Toki would let it slide. But no, that wasn’t going to happen. He could see it in Toki’s eyes.

The engines revved to life, a dull pounding roar that grew louder as the jet began to taxi, and the seconds dragged on as Skwisgaar waited.

Having to raise his voice to be heard over the noise, still staring at Skwisgaar, Toki finally asked, “Mediskations?”

“Don’ts worries abouts it, Toki.” The Swede turned away. He watched trees move past the small window on the other side of the cabin as the jet picked up speed along the runway.

Frowning, the younger guitarist sat quietly for a while. The jet roared deafeningly, the outside world became a blur. The plane lifted from the ground, suspending them in that moment of weightlessness… airborne. The engines became quieter as they ascended.

Growing impatient, Toki nudged his bandmate’s arm again, switching languages, “_Tell me, I want to know, are you ill?_”  
  
“No, not sicks.” Skwisgaar sighed, “_I don’t always feel well, I don’t sleep enough and I’m often not hungry. The doctor insists I am too thin, so the pills are to help me with that. Alright?”_

  
“Oh.” Toki nodded, he knew about that kind of medication, suspected other members of the band of having similar prescriptions hidden away. “Okays. I won’ts bodders you about it, den.”

“Takk.” And for a while, there was quiet, nothing but the low purr of the jet engines. Skwisgaar closed his eyes, feeling the craft start to level out. He was in it now, no turning back. Succeed or fail, he had to go through with it. And he refused to fail.

Beside him, Toki had immersed himself in his PS3, playing some game with little bouncing animals – and mercifully, earbuds. The Norwegian was totally unaware, as far as Skwisgaar could tell. He’s distracted, the lead guitarist thought, by his family and the holiday and all his own plans… he’ll never see me coming. A smile curled the blond’s full lips… And he relaxed a little. The trip was going to be very, very interesting.

7

Or at least, it would be once they got there. Six hours can vary greatly, depending on what you’re doing. It can go by in an instant, or stretch out forever. Being trapped in a small aircraft with someone who knows the name and powers of every single Pokemon is definitely in the latter category.

Skwisgaar tried to avoid being ‘educated’ about the finer points of Toki’s game, but there was only so long he could pretend to read the Etnedal business directory before he started going crazy (And really wanting one of those reindeer sandwiches.) The blond musician got up and changed seats once they’d reached cruising altitude, looking out the window on the opposite side of the cabin, but there was nothing below them but an unchanging blanket of cloud cover. Skwisgaar sighed and slouched in his seat, tapped his fingers on the armrest… checked his phone. Ugh. Five hours left before they reached Norway.

Toki played with his game, then fell asleep for a while, leaving Skwisgaar effectively alone. The jet rose higher, and Skwisgaar’s half of the cabin was flooded with angled rays of sunlight. Turning away from the bright light, he could see the darkened evening sky with a fat waxing moon through the windows on Toki’s side. He’d seen this before, flying over the ocean, but it was still strange, and, he thought, vaguely symbolic.

Unquantifiable amounts of time passed, Toki woke up and the two guitarists talked bullshit until the Klokateers brought out their midflight meal. Roast beef with onions, Parisian potatoes, and overcooked asparagus. Skwisgaar actually managed to eat most of it, anxiety and boredom making him peckish. Toki, who was always a healthy eater, devoured his own meal quickly, and then eagerly appropriated what Skwisgaar couldn’t finish. Watching the younger man eat always gave Skwisgaar an odd sense of satisfaction. Vicarious enjoyment, he supposed.

The rest of the flight went by a little quicker. Skwisgaar started drinking, and his younger counterpart, as usual, did the same. They kept to simple, bland topics of conversation, to avoid touchier subjects they both did and desperately did not want to get into. The Swede could spend hours talking about equipment and instruments, and eventually Toki brought up his memories of the Scandinavian winter holidays.

Toki’s family was much more invested in those celebrations than Skwisgaar’s, though the Swede’s mother had a love of Christmas, and often brought home a goose on the holiday eve (already cooked, Serveta could hardly turn the stove on without causing a disaster.) Between drinks, Toki told his companion about the stories and feasts typical of a traditional Winternights celebration. A holiday to keep housebound vikings sane until spring, he said. Skwisgaar smiled at that, he used to like winter, but the cold months in Stockholm and Österåker, comparatively temperate places near the ocean, weren’t nearly as brutal as those further north and inland.

When the jet landed with typical grace at a private runway near Lillehammer , a sleek black car was already waiting to take them to their hotel. Skwisgaar, the lightweight of the group, had become a lot more cheerful (and less coordinated) after a half-dozen shots of vodka, whereas Toki was still relatively sober, and amused at having to herd his Swedish companion off the plane.

“Stops dat, Toki, I can walks fine by mineselves.”

Turning his bandmate around again, “You keeps goings de wrongs way!”

“No… I’s not, I just gots to sits down.”

Taking Skwisgaar by the wrist, Toki simply dragged the taller guitarist down the ramp and then pushed him into the car like an uncooperative goat. He spoke in slightly bastardized Norwegian, “_We’ll go to the hotel, and then you can sleep that off_.”

Laughing, the drunken Swede slurred, “Hey Toki, you wants to hears a joke?”

“Sures?” Toki only half-listened, busy getting their luggage into the trunk of the car.

After snickering a bit, Skwisgaar started, loudly, “So dere den dere is dis Norsk what moves to de Americas right? And ahh… he gets, uh, buy dis nice houts wit’ a nice fronts yard wit grass in fronts, de lawns… in fronts. And den he sees de grass is getting all long, okays?”

“Ja.” Closing the trunk, Toki got into the limo, pulled on his seatbelt, and double checked the address with their driver.

“Okays so he wants to ah, to cuts his grass… and uh… he uh, he don’t knows how to does dis until… den he sees a sign because his Americans nabobs has… is… for sale a lawns mower. Ja?”  
  
Toki yawned, “Ja, ands?”

Skwisgaar grinned, scratching his neck, “Ands he go to ask, he says, ‘hows much ams dis lawns mower?’ And de Americans he says, ‘twenty bucks’… So de Norsk, he says, ‘Oh no t’anks, dat is too much… I can gets two bucks and dey can eats mine grass short!’”

“I don’ts get it.”

“Bah, you’s stupid, Toki. He t’inks it is de deers. Bucks, deers. So he puts de deers in his lawn.”

Toki grunted, not replying, and Skwisgaar fell asleep.

8

The driver watched them via his rearview mirror, he spoke enough english to understand the joke, but was clearly not amused by it. It wasn’t his job to say anything, though, he’d had far more offensive clients in his line of work.

It was a long drive, another three hours to Etnedal, but at least the car was warm. Skwisgaar was snoring quietly, so all Toki had to do was relax and watch the scenery go by. As they passed through Lillehammer, the city peeled away into suburbs, then farmland, and then hoary old rolling mountains. This was the land of his ancestors, Toki thought. Of frightened Norse peasants who hid in deep shaded valleys from the biting winters and monsters of legend. In the distance, sharper peaks were visible, a chain of white teeth biting into the brilliant blue sky, places where Gods lived, once upon a time.

There was a feeling of vast age in those snow-covered hills, a subtle angularity brought about by centuries of human intervention. People had been here, reshaped the land. People had lived here once, where there was now a stand of elm and poplar, the old walls and roads still left traces under the new growth. The very bones of the earth had been dug into.

Toki reflected on the history of his family, how easy it must be to see spirits in a land so filled with ghosts. Once in a while, the limo would be passed by smaller cars with skis strapped to the roof, tourists excited and impatient to get to the slopes, and the presence of these modern interlopers would break Toki’s reverie. He’d glance over to his sleeping bandmate, who was drooling on the seat, and then return to his own mind.

In time, the driver turned off the highway, following rusting road signs leading to their destination. Etnedal sat in a broad, shallow valley, the town built on the edges of a jewel-like lake, cupped by soft hills that were green even in winter with a mantle of thick pine forests. There was an odd sense of timelessness and isolation as they drove down into the valley, as if they were entering a tiny private universe, lit by a totally different sun than the one they’d known.

Their hotel was just a small three-story walk-up, built in that red and white Bavarian style so popular with ski resorts. The little town was already bustling with tourists, but this place was set a little further back, away from the crowds, and the two guitarists had hired out the entire top floor to ensure they’d have peace and quiet. Plus an extra two suites in case they had guests.

Once he’d managed to get Skwisgaar into his room, and tipped the porters who brought up their bags, Toki called his cousins out on their farm. It’d be a few hours, but someone would come out to meet them before sunset. Though he tried his best to be friendly, feeling almost awkward speaking to someone in an older dialect he hadn’t used in years, there was a deep nagging feeling of insecurity. He hardly knew his cousins, and had no idea who would be coming to see them. Even after he’d asked and gotten names, they were just words that meant nothing. He knew that ‘Mikkel’,‘Torvald’ and ‘Dagny’ were the children of his mother’s brother, but they were older than him, and hadn’t paid him much attention when he had been around.

Just as the sun was dipping its toes into the horizon, the Wartooth cousins arrived at the hotel. Toki was sitting out on the veranda waiting for them, while Skwisgaar, recently roused with a strong cup of coffee, took a shower. Toki wasn’t sure what he was expecting, perhaps a reindeer-drawn carriage, but the rhythm guitarist was surprised to see his relatives get out of a moss-green Volvo station wagon that looked nearly as old as himself. Not that his family shunned technology, but he could never quite grasp the idea of his parents’ kin truly existing in the twenty-first century.

All three of his cousins had mousy brown hair and grey eyes, harsh facial features, even on the woman, to which he felt little commonality. Toki’s parents resembled these people, but he did not. A changeling, they aunts and uncles had suggested, for Anja had always been a good and pious wife, there was never any doubt of her virtue. And Toki had always been seen as the outsider, until he’d truly strayed, and out in the world, acquired power.

He knew his family wanted to use him, even if his cousins didn’t know the true reason he was being welcomed back, Toki wasn’t so clueless. Skwisgaar was right, the younger musician knew, he needed to be careful. Blood may be thicker than water, but it’s no less capable of betrayal.

9

_(Adapted from Swedish)_

Toki’s family has invited us both to Winternights, which I didn’t expect, and I don’t know if Toki is totally happy with. I think he’s embarrassed of his family, that I’ll think they’re backwards and ignorant. That doesn’t matter, how can I judge anyone for their family? My mother is a disgrace to me, but in some twisted way, I still love her. She’s all I have.

But then there’s the band. As companions, co-workers, we border on being a family, edge on friendship… secretly worry about each other like any humans do. But all our cracks and bruises have made us too fragile to admit it. I can hear old, familiar holiday music just about everywhere I go in Etnedal, and it makes me wistful about those things we gave up or had beaten out of us.

I wonder what the other members of our band are doing. Drinking and screwing their lives away like always, I’m sure. It’s hard to imagine them changing, really. They’ve aged subtly, matured slightly, perhaps learned from their nine months of darkness, but they’re the more or less the same people. I’d never say I miss them, but I feel their absence.

We will be staying here for another week before going to ‘_Ulvetann Kastell’_, what the Wartooths call the compound. They’ve apparently known I was coming for a while, and discussed at length whether I should be included. I suppose perhaps because I am Swedish they’re not as worried about me being there. Or perhaps they think a show of good faith will ingratiate them to Toki.

I have to push things ahead. If I’m going to make a move, I need to do it before we leave Etnedal. Once we’re inside the compound, we will be watched too closely, and Toki will be far too nervous to tolerate any of my games. I would have liked to wait, but I don’t know if we’ll be returning here, or simply going back to Mordland after the holidays. Perhaps I should refuse to go, give Toki an excuse to leave Ulvetann between celebrations. I risk being rude, offending them and maybe upsetting Toki. I’ll have to ask him, I suppose, and hope for the best. *

10

In the end, Skwisgaar wound up agreeing to go to the Ulvetann compound for the main celebration, he’d stay for three days and then return to the hotel, keeping their rooms as a base. Toki would rent a car and spend two weeks with his family, and the other ten days at Etnedal with Skwisgaar, which meant four days to rest and recover before they returned to Mordland. Though his cousins didn’t understand, Toki knew he’d want that security, knowing there’d be a place he could go if things got bad at the compound.

Unfortunately for Skwisgaar’s intentions, Toki’s cousins decided to stay in the extra rooms at the hotel, as they rarely got the chance to visit town, which meant the two guitarists would get very little alone time until they left. Which, incidentally, would be the same day Toki was to leave for Ulvetann as well.

Out of lack of anything better to do, the older musician took to flirting with Dagny, who pretended not to notice. Her brothers, though, put on no such airs and glared at him constantly. Though he’d sneak a smile or a brush of a hand when they weren’t looking, taking a twisted pleasure in making the woman blush. Dagny wasn’t terribly attractive; a plain girl who didn’t wear makeup and kept her hair covered with a black kerchief at all times, her dress and body language intended to keep male eyes from settling upon her. But that was the challenge, as far as Skwisgaar was concerned. Making a woman who had the unused potential to be sexy _realize_ it.

The cousins had been there for two days before Toki took Skwisgaar aside to reprimand him for his behaviour. It wasn’t that he really cared about his family’s honour or values, but he needed to keep the upper hand, which mean not losing face in their eyes. The younger guitarist cornered Skwisgaar in his room, his expression dangerous.

“You gots to stops upsetsing my cousins, rights now. You understands me?” Toki’s tone wasn’t the childlike wheedling he used around his American bandmates, this was an adult speaking, fully aware of the weight of his words, choosing them carefully before speaking.

Skwisgaar’s eyes widened, not used to this side of his companion, “I’s nots doing anytings wrongs…”

“No, I don’ts care.” Toki snarled, keeping to English in anyone was listening. “You liskens good! I gots to handles dese people carefully. If you fucks dat up by makesing dem angry, dere’s going to be a fucksing mess, alrights?”

“Toki…” The Swede tried to placate Toki, but the rhythm guitarist was having none of it.

Sharply interrupting, “Alrights!?”

“Ja, okays… I won’ts bodder her anymores.” Skwisgaar swallowed dryly and edged away from the other musician. Toki was bordering on the kind of crazy look that preceded someone being injured or killed. The blond had only seen it a couple of times, but he’d already learned to be respectful of it. If not outright scared.

True to his word, the lead guitarist behaved himself for the rest of the Wartooth cousins’ stay. Dagny no longer had to worry about being flirted with, and her brothers became less hostile toward Skiwsgaar. This made Toki more relaxed, and soon they were actually having a pretty good time. As it turned out, Torvald was one of the musicians who’d be playing with Toki, a Spelemann fiddler and xylophonist. Skwisgaar was surprised to find out that amongst the sects of their religious order that did not take oaths of silence, music was a huge and very ancient part of their lives. Toki’s parents were considered odd, and Toki himself even odder, but the younger man’s love of music gave them something to connect through.

Though he had a less than enthusiastic opinion of old Scandinavian folk music, and little appreciation for the lovingly hand-crafted wood and bone instruments, Skwisgaar was polite enough and kept his thoughts to himself for Toki’s sake (and that of his own safety.)

He was actually surprised to feel a little sad when Toki and his cousins left for Ulvetann, leaving him to spend the next week alone at the hotel. Luckily there were plenty of tourists – some who recognized him – to lure into his bed. The best way Skwisgaar knew to keep himself occupied.


	2. Sections 11-20

Part 3

11

“So why do you think he went?” This was two days after the Scandinavians had departed, and Nathan had been very good about not saying anything up until then, but his curiosity, as always, won out. He knew Murderface was still happily hiding in his own ignorance about anyone in the band being even slightly gay (only slightly, of course,) so he had to wait for a good time when he and Pickles were alone together.

It was early in the afternoon, the daylight hours stretching long and boring breakfast and dinner. The band was used to being around each other; they ate together, played together, and rarely spent more than a day apart… But those middle-day hours were private time. Which is really very important when you share a house – no matter how big – with five other guys.

The drummer was reclining in his bed, naked but for a sheet loosely wrapped around his lower body. Resting on his elbow with a glass water pipe at his hip, he looked like some great ginger caterpillar curled around his hookah. And at his side, Nathan played an ever-bemused overgrown Alice, asking questions he already knew weren’t the right ones.

“I mean, “ The singer continued, “He didn’t want to be alone with Toki, and now he goes on a month long trip with the guy? Wasn’t he all like, ‘Toki’s going to rape me’ or something a week ago?”

Pickles shrugged, smoke curling from his mouth. “Eh, I t’ink yea know as much as I do dere.” He held out the bong so Nathan could take a hit. “I jest dunno if dey know.”

“You think it’s like, um, us?” Nathan accepted the water pipe, toked up and returned it to the sage redhead.

After thinking it over, Pickles shook his head, “Nah. Dey gaht differn’t issues ta werk out. An’ I mean, even if dere’s sommin’ dere, like attraction… don’t know if dey could ever _accept_ demselves like dis.”

“Like … they might not be gay. I mean, for each other. You know. Like that thing… “

Pickles grinned, they passed the pipe again, “Selectively bisexual? Y’know, prah’bly naht. Skwisgaar’s way too strung out over it, an’ Toki… Well, I don’t wanna say he’s dumb, but … dood’s kinda dumb. I’m kinda glad dey’re naht here, cos all th’ yellin was givin’ me migraines.”

“Heh, no shit.” “What the hell’s this? A unicorn?” He eyed a peeling sticker on the bong’s iridescent turquoise surface. “Unicorns are not metal.”

“Don’t diss my fuckin’ unicorn.” Pickles smirked, playing with the singer’s hair. “It’s a horse deat ken kill ya wit’ its feace. Deat’s brutal.”

Nathan cringed ticklishly, still looking at the shiny sticker, “Oh come _ON_, It’s dancing on a rainbow.”

“Rainbow laser beams of death.” The drummer corrected, taking the pipe back. He breathed in the rich herbal fumes and let them swirl in his lungs.

“More like beams of gay.” There was a moment of quiet after Nathan said that, and then they both cracked up laughing.

Catching his breath, “Heh. Ah’ll show ya a gay beam...” Pickles grinned, put the bong on the floor and crawled across the bed.

The singer’s eyebrows shot up at that, “Oh yeah?”

12

It was already a week later, and Skwisgaar was taking a cab to meet Toki’s cousins and uncle at the gate to _Ulvetann Kastell_. Once off the highway, the road was little more than a pair of gravel-lined ruts cutting a path through scrubby hills and thickening pine forests. Unlike the region closer to Etnedal or Lillehammer, where one could see faded evidence of humans at work, here there was a feeling of wildness, a sense that this land belonged to something vastly older and more primal than mankind. It started snowing again, and Skwisgaar felt watched as he rode silently in the back of the cab, his vision of the outside world obscured by slowly falling flakes. The driver was also obviously anxious, and the Swede knew it was at least partially because they were being followed. The dark car keeping a respectful distance behind them belonged to his bodyguards, and no words or threats on the guitarist’s part would have gotten them to go away. He could only convince them to stay outside and not interfere, they’d keep watch like always, and he’d try to ignore them. But he’d glance in the cab’s rearview mirror now and then, and even when he couldn’t see them, he knew they were there.

The guitarist was dropped off at a rather foreboding-looking wood and chain gate, where the tall blond wound up waiting in the snow for about fifteen minutes. Mikkel, Torvald, and an older man Skwisgaar didn’t recognize arrived in their old car to take him the rest of the way in. Within the property, most of the trees had been cut back, creating a wide-open clearing around the huge and ominous wooden church-house standing at its center. It rose up from the horizon, dark against the gray sky, wreathed in snow and glaring out of little shuttered windows that glowed like yellow eyes. As they got closer to it, the structure slowly lost its otherworldly qualities and became more of a palpable manmade structure. The Norwegians parked under an awning and led their guests to the entrance around front.

On entering the church, Skwisgaar immediately saw signs of the vast differences between ‘celebrations’ amongst Toki’s kin, and those of the secular Western world. This was no lighthearted holiday party. There were no streamers or balloons or Yule lights; rather this was something with far deeper symbolism, old roots demanding solemnity and respect.

There was perhaps a festive quality to the massive moose skull hanging over the large dining table, it’s broad palmate antlers hung with dried seed wreaths and dripping with waxen stalactites from years of thick white candles burning on their points. Its empty eye sockets gazed down at the humans who lived and worked under its silent watch. The skull seemed so much more permanent than the people did.

There were plenty of other decorative or ritualistic objects placed carefully around the large, open structure. Each one seemed to belong to its station, as relevant as the talismans of a stone-age clan. Skwisgaar eventually noticed a common thread to these things – all of them incorporated parts of dead animals (And sometimes humans.) Teeth and claws, horns and bones, fur and hide. All had been fashioned by hand into a variety of unfamiliar and oddly compelling handicrafts: pouches and bags, cups and bowls, jewelry, garlands, wall hangings, and toy-like models of animals and people. Some dyed in rich, earthy colours, using techniques perfected centuries before.

As well, tools and weapons were displayed among the decorations, these made of steel, iron or bronze. Swords, daggers and knives, blades for cutting meat or working leathers, the ancient, worn tips of harpoons and arrows. A pair of huge scythes hung over the main doorway. Many of these looked ancient, dark and weathered. Like the decorative objects, these things too were bound by a theme. They had all tasted blood, at one point or another, the older ones had been cured by it over time, the iron binding to the metal and creating a slick, dark patina of use.

Though it was a large church, the atmosphere was made to feel close and comfortable by the rich, oily smell and light of the candles burning on just about every surface. Most of these were modern paraffin, but traces of animal fat still clung to the holders, the scent released by heat. Along with the warmth and odors given off by cooking, incense, people and their attendant animals, the atmosphere had a dense, living quality. Skwisgaar made himself comfortable next to Toki, among some younger people seated on moufflon-wool rugs and leather cushions filled with reindeer hair, they were talking and playing number games with old dice carved out of horse teeth.

Among the celebratory activities, one of the favorites was apparently storytelling. Though these people spoke in a dialect he wasn’t familiar with, and his bandmate had to translate on occasion, Skwisgaar understood enough to get the gist of the tales. Old folk stories, a lot of adventure and glory, brave warriors, intrepid explorers, clever survivors. Meant to inspire the disheartened to battle through another winter in such stark and dreary latitudes. Once again, the blond musician noticed certain motifs. Like the talismans and the tools, the stories carried the ubiquitous presence of death.

‘These people thrive on death,’ Skwisgaar thought. Their culture revolved around it; fear of the afterlife, ghosts and gods and the near-worship of blood. Blood spilled in battle or in the hunting and slaughtering of animals, blood of birth and death. Maybe this was part of why Toki had been drawn to the band. ‘Death is in his veins. He belongs with us.’

13

It was around six in the afternoon when Charles got a call from the bodyguards assigned to the two guitarists in Norway. They knew to report to him the moment they saw trouble starting. Apparently something had happened, there had been no violence, nor any argument, but Skwisgaar had suddenly become upset. He’d walked outside in a pique and had to be coaxed back in by Toki, who had led him away from the gathering. They had been in their guest quarters since.

“Did you hear them say anything?”

“Yes, but I didn’t understand everything clearly.” Ron spoke passable Norwegian, but the guitarists’ private pidgin-speak often baffled him. “Apparently Lord Skwigelf is angry at the Wartooth family for something they did to Lord Wartooth. He wants to go home.”

“I think I know what that’s about.” Charles said sadly, he suspected this would have had to come up eventually. “If they actually ask to come home, bring them home, but don’t interfere. I don’t think the Wartooths will hurt them, but keep an eye on them anyway.”

“And if there is an incident, sir?”

“Do not hurt anyone if you can avoid it, use as little force as possible to get my boys out of there. This is still Toki’s family, and we need to respect that. Report to me again if anything changes.”

“Yes, Commander.”

The manager hung up and sat back in his high-back chair. Toki was a strange man. He’d been so badly treated as a child, yet his past tended to make others far angrier than he, the one who had actually suffered it.

Through denial and distraction, Toki led an almost zen-like existence. He remained a child who never grew up, never took responsibility, and certainly didn’t have a past where he was starved and chained up and whipped until he’d faint.

Even though he knew it was unhealthy, Charles could never quite bring himself to destroy Toki’s fantasy world. Hadn’t the young man earned his denial? Hadn’t the boy suffered enough without one of the few people he trusted adding to the trauma?

Eventually, Charles had promised himself, he’d do something, be the stern and reasonable adult that would make Toki grow up… but that could wait. It had been years now, since he’d told himself he’d do that, and it could still wait.

The CFO was also aware of the change in the two guitarists’ relationship. He’d never quite known what to make of Toki’s man-crush, or Skwisgaar’s inability to deal with it, but lately something had shifted, and in the weeks leading up to their departure he could see something calculating in the blond. Though part of him wanted them to work it out, he knew that the professional and vague sexual tensions were good for the band. Angst and drama sold albums, kept the fans hooked (particularly the ladies, which he didn’t mind partaking of on occasion,) and prompted the pair to keep their skills fresh and competitive.

In the long run, though, he knew they were wearing themselves down by fighting. Maybe he could let them rest… and find some way to light a fire under Murderface instead, get some real effort out of the lazy bassist.

Charles wrote down a couple of notes, ideas and numbers, and then went to take a shower. His line of work may not be very sweaty, but it always made him feel dirty at the end of the day.

14

_(Adapted from Swedish)_

There are a lot of terms used to describe that terrible moment of clarity when you realize exactly what it is that’s been bothering you, and it’s something you wish you hadn’t known. Sinking, chilling, sickly. All of it is true.

I felt it last night, during the second day of the high Holiday. Before that moment, I was able to enjoy myself among the Wartooth clan, I had been treated well as a guest, took part in feasts and drinking and games, even telling a few stories in my halting Norsk. I was actually having a good time here.

But after… Once that ‘click’ sounded in my brain, everything changed. I couldn’t stand to be in that church anymore, I suddenly felt sick and scared, my stomach went icy and leaden, my brain numb and my spine stiff. I withdrew, and when Toki tried to ask me about it, I simply walked out of the Church and into the snow.

The series of thoughts that lead me out there started with the overhearing of two men discussing a girl. I had noticed that like in many religious cults, the women here are quiet and subservient, and I was not really that surprised that they arrange weddings. But when one of the men described the girl’s lineage, he said ‘Her line always did produce good children with strong ‘likeness’. This word is the same in both Svenske and Norsk, so there was no mistaking it, but the way he used it was odd.

Likeness to _what, _though? The question bothered me for a while, and then it came to me like a bolt Likeness to _everyone around me. _I don’t know how I overlooked it before, maybe I was just preoccupied, or maybe it’s because the women tend to make themselves invisible, while the looks of men hold little interest for me. But I could see it then, clear as ice: They all had the same winter-sky eyes, the same slightly wavy doe-brown hair, the same sharp cheekbones and thin lips and narrow noses. Every person in Toki’s family… except Toki.

I remember Toki’s parents had both had the same ‘Likeness’, they could have been siblings, I had thought it was odd when I met them, but had forgotten it since then. They must have bred for this, must have been doing it for generations. Like dogs or cattle, these people have designed their children to fit some ancient image of human perfection.

Except Toki. Why was Toki different? …And what did it mean to these people that he was different?

That was the moment I felt the _sinking_.

No matter how I tried to answer those questions, I kept coming back to thoughts that unleashed nauseous floods of anger and sadness. Was Toki a mutation, a throwback, a product of infidelity or rape? It didn’t matter… For whatever reason, he didn’t look like them, and so these dour, inbred creatures had abused and neglected a child because he was born ‘wrong’.

I wish I had never come here, and that I had not let Toki come here. I want to leave as soon as I can, and never return. When we are safely back at Etnedal, I will try to tell him, if I have the stomach for it. I hope he can forgive me.*

Part 4

15

Toki started in on Skwisgaar almost as soon as the door to their guest room was closed. He spoke English, knowing his family would have probably sent someone to listen in by now. The Wartooth clan had little appreciation for the modern concept of personal space. Outsiders might call them nosy, but to these superstitious people, it was a duty to keep their fellows from sliding into temptation, falling prey to their own sinful urges.

“What’s is you’s problems!? Whats you won’t tell me, dats you has to makes dat big scene for?!” He’d been trying so hard to keep up appearances, stay calm, cheerful and friendly, and then his dumb blond companion had to make him look foolish.

Skwisgaar backed against the wall, eyeing the shorter man, his tone defensive, “What big scenes? I just walks out.”

“Ja, and all of dems sees it! You leaves and dey’s all looksing at me, like ‘oh he brings dat strange man who don’t acts right, he goes runnings off in de snow like de crazies!” The Norsk paced in the small room, trying to let off steam.

The blond muttered unhappily, “You don’ts understands, I heard-”

Toki cut him off, “Dey’s t’inksing you’s sick. I tells dem you has stomach sicks and has to go t’rows up.” Lying to his family had left a bitter taste in Toki’s mouth, the sin of it had been beaten into him as a child, and a bileful lump had risen in response to it.

Skwisgaar did feel pretty nauseous, so it wasn’t a total lie. “Tack. Get packsed, Toki. We gots to get out of here, calls de taxi and we leaves right now.”

Toki tensed, “What! Why!? We can’ts go now! I promisked I ams goings play de festivals musics tomorrow!”

“Dat’s ams nots importansk! You gots to-“

Again, his younger bandmate interrupted, “We cames all dis way and you helps me wits all dats practicing! I’s looksing forwards to dis! It ams a big deals!”

“Ja, I knows! I’s sorry! We can’t stays here, just trusts me!” Skwisgaar started to gather up his things to pack them, and his bandmate stopped him.

Holding the taller man’s wrist, Toki pleaded in frustration, “Why!? You can’t makes me go if you don’ts tells me right now! You tells me or you goes back by you’s self!”

“I’s not leaving you here… just tries to believes I knows somest’ing.” Skwisgaar looked at Toki pleadingly. He couldn’t say what he was really thinking, not there, just like that with no proof, nothing but the sickly feeling in his gut and what he overheard. Eventually he said, “…If we stays until after you plays de music, can we goes den?”

The younger guitarist thought it over. It would still be cutting their visit short by several days, but if Skwisgaar was _that_ unhappy… “Ja, we goes den.”

“Tusen tack.” The Swede said quietly, sitting down on his bed, “Ja, I feels sick, you tells dem I am sorries. I’s gonna try for gets sleep.” He could already tell it would be a long night.

Toki nodded, leaving to return to the gathering and try to save face. In the quiet after the rhythm guitarist left, Skwisgaar was sure he heard something, someone? Moving, brushing against the wall outside the door. The sound was only there for a few seconds, but they kept the unsettled musician awake for hours.

16

It was a quarter past eight in the morning, and the two Klokateers sent to keep watch at Ulvetann had not reported back to Mordhaus in over a day. Attempts to call them had gone unanswered, and Charles was not pleased. By ten, the manager was certain something had gone very wrong, and was already on his way to the command center with emergency plans in mind. With nearly half the band in the midst of potentially extremely hostile territory, the situation had to be handled very, very carefully.

Cup of coffee in hand, the bespectacled man the Klokateers referred to as ‘The Commander’ gave succinct, precise orders. His men sprang into action, a well-oiled machine… but still missing two very important parts. A jet was pulled from the hangar and prepped for takeoff, and Charles watched the ground crew rush to fuel her. Within an hour, fifteen military Hoods were leaving for Norway, their regiment specifically trained for stealth operations, the equivalent of Black Ops. Armed to the teeth, but with orders to hang back and assess the situation, just in case it turned out not to be a complete crisis.

Perhaps the two hoods at Ulvetann had managed to crash their car, or get lost in the woods, some stupid human error that had cut them off from contact. Or possibly gotten them killed. That would be acceptable, as far as the CFO was concerned. The Klokateers were ultimately expendable. So while not an ideal situation, far better than what he was afraid had happened.

Then of course, there was the matter of the other members of the band. Charles didn’t want to tell them what had happened, he knew they’d want to rush in and ‘rescue’ their bandmates – Nathan in particular with his lopsided conscience and sense of responsibility. Murderface would want to play the hero, and Pickles… well, he’d care in a detached, disapproving mother kind of way, and they’d all go gallivanting off to ruin the day.

Of course if he didn’t tell them, not even the Devil could save the manager from the tantrums and complaining and only mostly-empty death threats. So, with that in mind, Charles returned to his office and brought up a com screen to the kitchen, where the three bandmates were having breakfast.

“Hi, guys… We need to have a chat.”

17

Dagny moved quietly, a candle-holder in her hands. She hurried, but her soft-soled slippers made almost no noise on the worn wooden floor, her long skirts muffling any trace of her footfalls. Silent, as a good woman should be. She approached her father’s door and knocked lightly, “Papa?”

Within a chamber packed close with stacked books and heavy-built furniture, Faderen Enok looked up from his desk, recognizing the voice of his youngest child. He spoke in an old, Danish-heavy dialect of Midland Norsk, “Come in, daughter.” The priest smiled at the young woman as she entered the room and closed the door behind her. In candle-light, she looked exactly like her mother , if younger.

Dagny stood before her father, the sire of twelve children in his faith, and the patriarch of their order, yet a man she knew very little of and rarely spoke to. He was far older than Dagny’s mother, who was his fourth wife, and most of his children already had children of their own.

In his chair, the elder looked every bit the true likeness of the Founder, with his long silvery mane and craggy cheekbones. He wore the informal robes of his rank, and had perched upon his long narrow nose a pair of old bifocals. The man hardly looked intimidating, but when he moved and spoke, it was with power, and the confidence to use it. “You wish to speak to me?”

Dagny nodded.

“Speak.” Enok waited.

With a small bow, the woman took her headscarf off, “The Swede wants to leave. He is upset and ill. He wants the Changeling to go with him.”

Enok considered, “Does Toki wish to leave?”  


“I am not sure. I think he wants to stay for the festival. They were speaking English, and I don’t understand all of it.”

The priest nodded, “Keep studying the language, daughter, it is good to know what they know. This is good, though. If the Changeling and his friend stay until tomorrow, it won’t matter after that. It will be done.”

“What about Skwisgaar?” Dagny looked down. She kind of liked him, he paid attention to her… and he was different. The exotic and forbidden tugged at her young heart.

Enok frowned at his child, “Do not worry about him, he will be dealt with after the ceremony. As will the men we found hiding in the forest.”

Swallowing, the young woman asked softly, “Will _she_ want them, papa?”

“If she doesn’t, it will be up to us, won’t it?”

“Yes, papa.”

The elder priest closed his book, “Think no more on it. Goodnight, daughter.”

Without another word, his daughter was dismissed, and obediently the woman tied her scarf around her hair and returned to her own quarters for the night.

Rising from his desk, Enok crossed the room and stood by his window, studying the play of moonlight on snow and thinking. ‘So it seems we have to fight to keep the rabbits in the wolf’s teeth this year… Lord Odin, help your clan to fulfill these tasks you have given us.’

18

The next day, Dagny returned to the guest room to check on Skwisgaar. Toki had already gone fishing with Torvald, so only the blond would be there. She brought with her a tray of food for the sick man, which she eventually got him to take, but not without some insistence.

Skwisgaar thanked her in broken Norwegian, and was surprised to feel her push a folded scrap of paper between his hand and the underside of the tray. When he took it, Dagny swept quickly out of the room, returning quickly to the galley and slipping in among her cousins and siblings.

Two things the young woman knew. One was the scripture; Father Enoch the First, known as ‘The Founder’, and considered finest among men, had taught his disciples that it was wrong to kill an innocent person without a truly just cause. And what her father was thinking was not, in her mind, just enough.

Or perhaps Dagny’s affection for Skwisgaar had tainted her mind, after all, she was merely a woman, and easily swayed by sin. He was a beautiful and charming man, as many outsiders are, but she could sense no particular wickedness in him, except for an unusual degree of that male lust which her own kind tried so hard to keep hidden. Not that a few belts of strong ale or akavit didn’t unleash it in their men just like any other. Was she damned then, for defying her father to try to save the outsider’s life? She considered it possible, but felt the risk was worth it.

The other thing she knew is that she had very good Likeness, traced back to the Founder’s Wife, Solveig the Doe. A likeness she shared with her sisters and many cousins… one Doe is liken to all others in Solveig’s lineage, so who would remember which one had been gone a minute?

Dagny resumed her daily chores, smiling and talking with the other young unmarried women as if she hadn’t a care in the world. But inside, each minute moving her toward the midnight ceremony was a tiny icy dagger to her heart.

19

Skwisgaar blinked at the note, surprised to find it written in English. ‘Meet me in the side stable at 10. Hide this paper.’ He smiled, wondering if the girl had thoughts of a clandestine tryst with the tall handsome foreigner. Had his attempts to woo her at the hotel actually worked? It would be in the middle of the pre-concert feasting, so of course it would be an opportune time to sneak away unnoticed.

Inside, he argued with himself. Or rather, his brain argued with his penis. Considering what he’d heard, sneaking off to have sex with this girl was only somewhat tempting, and possibly very dangerous. What if he impregnated her? What punishment then would befall the poor woman for bearing a strikingly blue-eyed and blond child?

Then again, an offer was an offer… And perhaps he could be careful with this one, commit the sin of spilling his seed on the ground… The more he thought about it, played out the scenario in his mind, the more it appealed to him. He would go, then, and charm Dagny.

The food he was given was good, but much of it salted, and Skwisgaar found the glass of raw cider provided not enough liquid to go with it. Thirsty, he put on his boots and headed down to the kitchen to ask for some more cider, or at least water. He asked one of the women working in the kitchen, one who looked so much like Dagny that it made him blink, until he noticed a small mole under her eye, and a slightly darker shade to her hair, subtle differences in an almost cloned population.

She told him to take a seat, that she’d bring him a drink, so he sat down at one of the tables where people ate their breakfasts and lunches. Waiting, he saw several other women pass by. They all looked so alike, but he could see the details that identified them. One might have blond highlights, another a touch of green or hazel to her eyes, slightly fuller lips or an upturned lilt to her nose. These differences must be incredibly important among them, or perhaps the subject of riducule and scorn, he’d never know.

At a nearby table, a couple of young girls were talking, perhaps 8 or 10 years old. They were speaking openly and loudly enough for him to listen in, perhaps under the false belief that the foreigner couldn’t understand them. Skwisgaar spoke Norwegian poorly enough, but he knew more than he gave away, and Toki had taught him some Dutch during their practice sessions, so he picked up the occasional word here or there he wouldn’t have otherwise.

“_I don’t think he is a cousin.”_ One of them said. _“He looks like an outsider.”_

“_He’s an _fjernbytebarn_.”_ The other replied, _“His parents must have had good Likeness, but sometimes the baby grows up wrong.”_ There was a word in there that Skwisgaar had never heard before. The last syllable sounded like the word for ‘baby’ in nearly all Scandinavian languages, but the rest of it was confusing.

“Mama says their lineage is tainted, that’s why there haven’t been any exchanges since before I was born. Even though Hemming was a good one.”

“_Hemming is good, but I wouldn’t want to marry him. The babies could be all wrong.”_ The girls giggled over the boy, in the normal way girls anywhere do. As if somehow they’d suddenly realized the blond man were listening to them, the two girls suddenly glanced over at him, then gathered their belongings and left. The entire scenario, the conversation and the abrupt exit, had taken less than two minutes, and left Skwisgaar with an intense case of the creeped-outs.

At about the same time, the woman from the kitchen returned with a large mug of cider for the guitarist, who thanked her and drank it quickly. He was still thirsty, but he didn’t want to stay there any longer than he had to. Excusing himself and feigning still being ill, Skwisgaar politely went back to the room. Really, he wanted to get away from these people, have nothing more to do with them until it was time to leave.

His mind flicked back to Dagny and her note. Did he still want to go meet her? She had lost any appeal she’d had back at the hotel, but he was still burningly curious. What if it wasn’t sex she was after? What if she could answer some of his questions? He would still meet her, he decided.

When he arrived at the guest room, Toki had already returned from fishing, and having showered, was putting on clean clothing. For a moment, the Swede just stood there and took in the sight of the shirtless younger man. The way the Norsk’s damp auburn hair clung to the finely toned muscles of his back. Beautiful, he thought, so much more so than the sharp-faced homogeneity of the Wartooth clan.

Skwisgaar shook himself out of it, “Hej, Toki. You catching any fish?”

“Ja, gets five nice ones, Pikes and trouts. dey’s gonna cooks dem for dinners.” He seemed proud of himself for that, contributing to the feast.

Nodding, the Swede changed topic, asking, “Whats is _fjernbytebarn_?”

“Likes _Bortbyting_, Elf Changeling.” Toki said, then paused, “Where you hears dats?”

“Somes little girls was talksing. Whats is changelings?” Skwisgaar sat down to wait for Toki to finish dressing.

The younger man seemed kind of bothered by the question, “Whats were dey saysing?”

“Just about de boys, like girls talks. Saysing dat somes of dem looks betters den odders. One of dem says, someone ams grows up wrong because dey ams dis changeling.” Skwisgaar shrugged. “Den dey gives me a weird look and runs away, whatsever.”

Toki frowned, “Dey’s talkings about me. When I was littles dey calls me dats. It was teasings me, a jokes because I looks too differents.”

“Oh.” Though he felt it, Skwisgaar couldn’t quite bring himself to actually apologize. “Just dumbs kids, Toki, don’t worries abouts it. What’s does it means?”

Toki took a moment to think back, “Old legend. Says de elves has weak bloods, so dey has to somestime steals a humans baby, to strengt’en de lineage. And dey leaves a weak Elf baby for de humans parents to raise instead. Dats is de changeling.” He sat down across from Skwisgaar, who had turned kind of pale. “You’s okays?”

“No… noes, not reallies.” He’d had another click, another moment of chilling sinking awareness… Why did he have to be the one to see these things? Why couldn’t Toki understand any of this? Those girls had been talking about something even he considered horribly immoral, with a nonchalance that spoke of generations of practice. The Swede swallowed thickly. “I t’inks I stays in here… stays wit’ me, Toki?”

“You reallies ams sick, Skwisgaar? I can stay for a whiles.” He’d promised to help build the concert stage at the edge of the woods later in the afternoon, but he could keep Skwisgaar company until then.

20

Waking up from dreamless sleep that he didn’t remember falling into, Skwisgaar pushed himself out of bed, now feeling quite horrible. When he managed to focus on the bedside clock, he found it was already close to nine in the evening. Groggily, he found his way to the washroom and threw up, purging his body of whatever had poisoned him, as well as everything he’d eaten that day.

It was only after he’d recovered some that Skwisgaar remembered Dagny. He showered quickly in the communal bath, dressed, and hurried to the stable to meet her. The cold, fresh outdoor air helped wake him up, clearing his head and quelling some of the churning in his stomach.

There were a couple of shaggy Jutland horses in the paddocks, which huffed at the Swede for attention. He scratched their noses and fed them bits of barley straw from a bale kept out of the horses’ reach, occupying himself with the animals until Dagny joined him.

He smiled when he saw her, having to look closely in the dim lamplight to make sure it was the right woman. At first, he tried to appear solicitous of her attentions, leaning against an empty paddock door just so… but he could quickly tell by her manner that this wasn’t exactly a social meeting.

Moving close to the Swede’s side, Dagny spoke quietly in heavily accented English, “You are in danger. You should go and leave now. Take a horse to gate, telephone work. Call for cars, horse comes back. Go now.”

A cold thrill ran up Skwisgaar’s back, setting all the hairs erect, he didn’t doubt her words for a moment. “I can’ts go wit’outs Toki.”

Lowering her gaze, the woman sighed, “Cannot take Toki. He must stay… has to be for the…” She lapsed into Norwegian, “_Ceremony._”

“Whats? De concert?” The blond glared at Dagny, who nodded. “What happens at de concert?”

“She come. She take him. Maybe also take you… If you do not leave now. I must go, cannot have me seen.” The woman started to leave, but Skwisgaar’s hand flashed out and caught her arm.

“Who comes? Who ams she?”

“Disvarrún.” With that singluar answer, Dagny tugged her arm away from the man’s grip, years of hard work had made her stronger than he’d expected, and she walked out, leaving the guitarist with a multitude of new questions.


	3. Sections 21-33

Part 5

21

Some time earlier, as the sun set over the Scandinavian Mountains, fifteen armed and highly trained men had arrived at Ulvetann. They drifted through the woods surrounding the Church-house, prowling silently like a pack of black wolves in the snow. For now, they were merely there to investigate and report. Their General still didn’t know what was happening inside the compound, and could not yet risk simply rushing in until he had more information.

The Wartooths were already well into their celebration by then. The grounds behind the church were lit with bonfires and torches, and the light of a pendulous full moon. A wide oval had been delineated with wooden poles, forming a trellis on which pine-bough wreaths and garlands were hung, along with decorations of berries, pinecones, and coloured fabrics. Food was brought out on big wooden trays, fall vegetables and meat in immense quantities, as well as wine in great bulging reindeer-skin vessels. Soon music was being played to go along with the feasting, bright and ancient folk melodies for the children to dance to, while teenagers secretly flirted over their cups.

All this was being reported back to Mordhaus via a live feed, and Charles continued to stay his hand. He had fifty more Klokateers at the ready, but the scene being relayed was so _wholesome_, a joyous holiday amongst family; how could he deprive Toki of that? And then the music stopped, and he could see the young guitarist take the stage, a Mandolin-like string instrument held lovingly in both hands.

There was a hush over the gathering. Toki stood bathed in light, center-stage, and began to play. The notes fell sweet and glittering from the instrument, richer in timbre and cleaner than the sound of an electric guitar. The other musicians fell in line with Toki’s melody, emphasizing it, carrying it upward… A heart-achingly beautiful piece, almost mournful, incorporating the vastness, the icy cold and the stark beauty of Norway. The howling winter winds and the wonder of its brief, fruitful summers, in a cyclical ascending tune that seemed to spiral up into the sky.

Nobody danced to this music, nobody hummed or tapped their feet or whistled… the crowd was enrapt, silent in respect and awe. This wasn’t mere human noise, this was a song by which they addressed the spirit world. Even watching from thousands of miles away on a grainy feed, Charles was affected, and he knew his Gears would be under a similar spell. Dangerous, he realized, and shook himself out of it, snapping orders through his Klokateers’ headgear to wake up and keep their wits about them.

Unsettled, Offdensen contacted the team on standby in Lillehammer, and told them to move into strategic position. He wanted to get his boys out of there as soon as the party was over. Something bothered him about this, and for a moment he had a brief flashback to one of the band’s misadventures from a few years ago. That’s preposterous, he thought. But then, he would have thought it impossible for _that _to have happened until he saw it for himself. In that case, he decided, nothing is preposterous, anything could be waiting for his people at Ulvetann, and he could not be prepared enough.

22

There was just no way in Hell Skwisgaar was going to leave without Toki. That was unacceptable, unthinkable! Not merely out of any affection for his bandmate, but because he had a sense of honour. He would not leave one of his own behind, and surely Skwisgaar was more ‘family’ to the rhythm guitarist than these strange and barbaric people who had treated him so poorly, shown him no love. Until now…

The question had been bothering him, why NOW? Why, after all this time? The simple answer came easily: because they’d wanted something, they needed something from Toki. Dagny had said someone was coming for the younger guitarist, what was the name? ‘Disvarrún’. The girl had spoken it with a fearful reverence. The changeling cousin would he be offered up to some she-spirit. …Like a sacrifice? Oh gods, would they hurt Toki to please their Goddess? Skwisgaar fought panic. He needed a weapon, and luckily the Church was full of them, but he had to get to one, remove it, and sneak out without being seen. And in this place, with its homogenous population, he stood out like a tall blonde Swedish thumb.

Fortunately, most of the clan were outside, enjoying the party. There were still people about, but it had been assumed that Skwisgaar would stay in his room, sleeping off the drugged meal he’d been served. The Swede’s body had been tested before, and he had recovered far faster than they knew. As his hosts reveled, he ghosted quietly through the halls, black-clad in a light corded sweater and one of the head-kerchiefs the married ladies of the clan wore, tied to hide his shining yellow hair and much of his face.

Luck or Loki was watching out for the lead guitarist, and he slipped into the darkened dining hall with no audience save the moose-skull chandelier. Most of the weapons mounted on the walls were dull and patinated, not terribly useful, but there were, he recalled, a pair of simple swords above the head of the table that looked new and sharp. They hung in brackets with their scabbards behind the blades, and Skwisgaar took great care in removing one of the weapons and its sheath from the wall. The sword slid effortlessly into its scabbard, which the blond attached to his belt. He found a smaller knife and hid that in his boot, wishing he had something for armor other than the clothes on his back.

What’s your plan, Skwisgaar? What are you going to do once you get out there? He had to get to Toki before anyone realized he was there. He could use something to hide him, like a cloak… or a blanket. A horse blanket would be ideal, he thought, if not for the horse smell, and easily gotten, as he already knew how to get to the stables. He was actually pleasantly surprised to find clean blankets in a storage closet between stalls. They still smelled of horse, but not to an offensive degree, and he slung a thick grey one over his shoulders, letting it drape down like a cape, hiding his shape and that of the sword at his flank. Skwisgaar wouldn’t have minded a mirror just then, it would have been cool to see how badass he looked, but he decided it would do.

23

“Something’s happening,” The Gear known by his team as ‘KTS-Alpha’ reported to his leader. Charles told him to focus in, get closer if possible, and Alpha did so, moving slowly and stealthily between the trees. Toki was still playing, but the young man was visibly tiring. The throng of people watching him swayed slowly to the melody, but behind the stage, there was activity that didn’t fit in. Alpha wanted to get a better view of what was happening there. He signaled to his teammates to hold position as he crept closer, behind a thicket of juniper. The camera in his headgear relayed what he was seeing back to Mordhaus, and he carefully zoomed in on the actions of the people behind the stage.

They were removing the decorations from two tall poles fixed behind where the musicians were playing, while a small dais was quickly lifted into place between them. It looked like they were preparing for something, a sermon of some sort maybe. Well, it was a religious order, Charles thought. Still, he told Alpha to stay where he was, continue watching.

On the stage, Toki looked worn out as the last song ended. At that moment, a woman approached the guitarist to take the instrument from his hands, and from behind, four strong-looking men were approaching Dethklok’s rhythm guitarist… Charles swore when he saw what they were doing, and started yelling at Alpha to get Toki out of there, but he was cutoff mid-sentence by a loud yelp, when the feed from the Klokateer’s headgear abruptly cut off.

Switching to the next in command, KTS-Beta, no time was wasted investigating Alpha’s dissapearance. The order to move in was given and quickly obeyed, fourteen members of the tactical team leapt from the woods, startling the natives out of their reveries. To the people of Ulvetann, the Klokateers were a pack of demons that had appeared out of nowhere, half-invisible in the dark, and everywhere at once. Soon Beta’s feed was a riot of screaming and flailing Norwegians… all of which, Charles noticed, looked oddly alike… and strangely familiar. Yet not like Toki at all.

There wasn’t time to think about that, though. Charles needed to see what was going on, and he had Beta peel off from the battle and take up higher ground, preferably a vantage point from which he couldn’t be easily dislodged. As soon as Beta acknowledged him, Offdensen switched channels and contacted the leader of his backup units, 50-strong and holding position outside of Ulvetann’s borders. With a word, they too began to advance on the compound, spreading out to contain the population from all sides. Nobody was getting out unless the General of Mordhaus said they were.

24

Toki was getting tired. The melodies he was playing were a lot harder than what he was used to, and he was playing them with an intensity that took a lot out of him, as if he were pouring all his energy into the notes. The musicians backing him were driven the same way, following him deeper and deeper into the songs.

Though the performance was draining, the rhythm guitarist felt weightless, his fingers almost flew across the strings, his hands remembering the notes without him. When with the rest of Dethklok, Toki had always had to concentrate, listen to the beats, follow Skwisgaar’s lead – but now he was leading, and it came to him effortlessly. It wasn’t the playing that was tiring, it was the experience. As if it were his will that kept his audience so spellbound, and he needed to keep it up, he was doing this for a larger purpose.

For a while there, he felt a sense of total happiness… Toki knew he was wanted and loved by something bigger and better than all the people who had hurt him and abandoned him in his young life. Pain and fatigue became unimportant, faded into the background, leaving him in a euphoric was of light and warmth… And then the music began to wind down, and he realized, with sorrow, that its ending would take that wonderful feeling with it, yet he had to let the music end, it was out of his control.

When the final notes faded away to silence. Toki stood in place, exhausted, sweating and shivering, eyes glazed. He barely noticed when he was taken by the arms and pulled toward the back of the stage. He was brought to stand on a platform between two sturdy poles, now stripped of their ornaments, and soon found he had been chained to them. He tugged at the chains, unable to process what was going on, but he had no chance to ask, because several extremely distracting things happened roughly at once. All of which he could see from his elevated vantage point.

First, he noticed a small squabble erupting to one side of the stage, Toki was fairly sure he saw Skwisgaar there, yelling as a dozen hands dragged at his skin and clothes, despite the Swede waving a sword threateningly at their owners. The lead guitarist had had the blanket and kerchief stripped away, and his hair fluttered brightly in the torchlight, almost as vivid as the blade he held over his head.

And then something larger was happening at the other end of the gathering area, by the church, where a pack of large hooded men were charging into the rabble, amid the screams of women and children, many of whom were actively trying to stop the intruders from advancing.

The third thing Toki noticed was that the ground was shaking. Subtly at first, but then strongly, in a rhythmic _thump-thump-thump-THUMPTHUMPTHUMP _that made the trees and poles sway. Torches fell to the earth, and mothers held onto their children as the previously clear sky blackened and split with lightning.

Over the yelling and crashing, a deep voice sounded, insistent and timed to the rhythm of the shaking earth. It was the leader, Enok, and the other male elders, chanting. Rising through the commotion, the single word repeated: “Disvarrún! Disvarrún!”

Wind whipped up, and flames from the toppled torches caught on the pine-bough wreaths, climbing the trellises and spreading with unnatural speed, creating a flaming halo above the frightened congregation. And with that wind came a howl, a dark and baleful sound, far more frightening than any made by a natural animal. This was the howl of the freezing wind incarnate. Disvarrún was answering her people.

25

“Toki! TOKI!” Skwisgaar was screaming over the noise, he was only a few paces away, but he was being crushed by frightened and angry Wartooths. He didn’t really want to hurt them, but he had to get away, so he started beating at people with the flat and hilt of his sword, tearing himself away from the throng. He was almost too distracted by the people and the flames to notice that the ground was shaking, but as he climbed up onto the stage, Skwisgaar stumbled and realized that it wasn’t him that was trembling, but the structure he stood on. Beyond where he and Toki stood, the entire forest was shuddering and swaying… And then the trees parted to give way to something massive, ancient, and terrifying beyond all reason. A low howling preceded it, growing deeper and more frightening. The Swede stood transfixed, and behind him the sounds of fighting faded away as one by one, every human in the gathering turned to look. Toki yelled to Skwisgaar, the words drowned out by the deafening roar around them, and then the younger guitarist twisted in his chains to look as well.

Something large, impossibly enormous, was emerging from the dark and ancient wilderness. Approaching like a stormhead, black against the tempestuous night sky. A beastly form on the scale of the Nordic mountains themselves, shouldering the tall pines aside to pass. Kin to Fenrir, a Goddess with the body of a spirit-wolf, clad in long fur as black as the deepest mountain crevices. Her face resembled that of a human woman, white as the orb of the moon, and nearly as round, with delicate, small features. As exquisite as a porcelain mask, and similarly lacking any sign of human warmth.

A thick ruff of raven fur parted to reveal two smaller heads nestling against Her throat. Like wolves’ heads, but far more savage, blind and snarling, mouths full of horrible white teeth, at the end of long, slender necks, serpentine under the fur. For the time being, their muzzles remained pressed against the Goddess’ chin, held in check, but no less fearful for their restraint.

Disvarrún stepped out of the woods. Every step brought with it a screaming flurry of snow and wind stirred up by the vastness of Her step, and before Her the human gathering gave way in unquestioning terror. The ground shivered beneath broad paws large enough each to crush a horse, and a dark mist wafted around her legs.

Stopping before the stage, the Goddess looked down at Her flock, and though they were frightened, She knew Her people. They resembled the first man and woman She had allowed to worship Her, they carried the same smell, the same faces, and She approved of this. All other humans were interchangeable and fleeting to Her, but She remembered the children of Enoch and Solveig. She saw other humans running around as well, not of Her people’s kind. This was unusual, but She ignored them and turned her attention to the stage.

Disvarrún expected an offering, and there he stood: a young man, a stranger, chained and waiting for Her. There was another man there as well, a tall one with yellow hair and a sword. But this man was not of the Founder’s lineage either, so he was of no consequence, She would take them both.

26

Enok held his daughter and watched from well away from the stage. He knew about the Klokateers, and he could see Skwisgaar standing there, but none of that mattered. The Goddess would take care of them. In his arms, Dagny trembled. This is the first time she had seen the face of her people’s deity, whereas for Enok, this had played out twice before already.

He was a good leader, he decided. Enok had kept his people and their ways safe and secret from the outside world for over 50 years, and Disvarrún had rewarded him for his good works. He considered himself lucky. How many people had a Goddess to whom they could actually pray and receive an answer?

Soon She would take Toki away, and probably the blond troublemaker as well. And then they would deal with the intruders. She would hold them in her thrall while Her people slaughtered them. She would bless the Earth where blood was to be spilled, and with such a sacrifice, surely She would be particularly pleased. The next generation would certainly be a happy and fortunate one.

It had been this way since the Founder and his Wife began their order. It was a simple arrangement: One life to save the rest from the ravages of winter. The Goddess would pass over their little valley and spare them for twenty five years, after which another life was needed. Before the Order, Enoch the First and his family had been forced from their ancestral home, shunned as heretics, and it was only in this tiny place that they found peace and prosperity. But as with many good things, it came with a price.

At first the villagers had sacrificed one of their own, but upon discovering that the Goddess would accept any human on the altar, they began to bring in outsiders. Kidnapping adults was too dangerous however, they would fight and make noise, and the victims’ families would come looking for them. So the practice of placing Changelings had started. They would raise the outsider’s children in their religion, but the ones who grew up looking 'wrong' would never truly belong with them. Although only the Elders and the foster parents knew what such a child’s fate would be, the entire Village knew he or she was different. And that, to those who valued the ‘Likeness’, was a sin.

27

There was nothing he could do. This was a position Dethklok’s manager and CFO rarely found himself in, and he hated it. On the screen in front of him was the vast white mask of the Goddess, as seen through Beta’s headset. Even with the grainy, shrunken feed, it took all of the man’s strength to keep from kneeling down in the middle of the command room. Charles’ face was red and wet with rage and frustration and willpower. He brought up other feeds on the screens around him, but every man on site was focused on Her, all of them rendered useless.

The manager longed desperately to turn it all off, shut out that horrible face, but he had to keep watching, he had to know what was going on. Charles whispered hoarsely to his Gears, begging them to move, to get his boys out of there, to do ANYTHING but grovel in the dirty snow. He could see Skwisgaar standing on the dais with the still-chained Toki. The blond was still holding his sword, but he was as still and enthralled as everyone else.

In futility, the CFO had tried to get more help. He’d made impossible demands on his own forces, and pleaded with the Norwegian Ministry of Defense to send help, nearly resorting to threats to light a goddamned fire under them. And even though his Klokateer troops were already on supersonic jets, and the Norwegians had promised to move as quickly as possible, Charles knew there was nothing they could really do either. There was simply no time… the scene would be over in moments if the Goddess chose to end it.

This was simply so far beyond what Charles had considered the worst case scenario. This was a disaster of a magnitude that threatened the poor man’s straining mind. What would he do now? How would the others react? He had failed his boys, utterly and completely, and his heart ached with the weight of that thought.

He saw the Goddess lean down over Toki and Skwisgaar, her face contorted into a smile, and the maws of those evil wolf’s heads opened up, dripping red caverns full of fangs, snaking toward his two guitarists – his children, and he screamed.

Part 6

28

Earlier in the day, Nathan had called a band meeting. He had been trying to talk to their manager, get some answers, and had been brushed off curtly. The big vocalist stood with his arm folded, head lowered slightly. “The fact is… we’re being shut out of the process.” He said to his two American bandmates, “Something’s going on, and nobody’s telling us anything. This is our band, and it should be up to us what happens to it.”

“Well we schould do schomething about it then! We’re powerful people, if there’sch a problem, we can fix it, we aren’t incompetent…” Murderface paused, “Scho wait, what are we talking about?”

Nathan grunted, and said slowly, “Toki and Skwisgaar are in trouble.” He made sure the bassist was listening before continuing, “Charles told us that their bodyguards went missing the other day, right? And now all the hoods are running around like they’re scared, and Charles isn’t telling us anything.”

“He’s keepin’ sommin’ frahm us,” Pickles agreed. “He prah’bly doesn’t want us ta git upset er go runnin’ ta Norway.”

“Well,” Murderface looked thoughtful, which was bad, “Then that’sh probably what we schould do, right? I mean they’re our bandmatesch. He juscht doeshn’t believe in ush, like we can’t handle thisch kind of schituation.”

“Yeah!” Pickles nodded. “We should be dere for ‘em! …So how are we gahnna git dere?”

“Take a jet.” The singer shrugged, “They’re OUR jets, they can’t tell us not to take one.” Nathan liked that feeling of being in charge and having the answers. “We just need to tell them to get us a pilot and get the fucking thing in the air.”

“Deat might actually werk… good idea, Nate.” The drummer smiled up at the singer and leant back against him. He knew Murderface was still in denial, and predictably the bassist just rolled his eyes, thinking the two acted so gay sometimes.

“Okay, you guysch know what you’re doing, scho I’d better go get packed. If we’re going back to Schweden…”

“Norway.” Pickles corrected.

Murderface paused. Not Sweden? No possibility of seeing Serveta again? “Really? Schit, well maybe I schouldn’t go then… Schomeone needs to schtay here and…”

“WE’RE ALL GOING!” Nathan growled, “Go pack! We leave in half an hour.”

“Gyuhh… fine!” The bassist slunk out of the room, leaving Pickles snickering, and Nathan wondering exactly what Murderface just _had_ to bring with him on a rescue run to the middle of nowhere.

29

Toki trembled in fear, as all mortals do when Disvarrún crouched low to get a good look at Her offering. The chained man paled and shut his eyes, tears rolling down his cheeks. She knew this was an attractive male, young and healthy, a prime specimen. as humans go. A worthy sacrifice, She thought, but when She got close enough to discern his scent from the general stench of humans, She held those hungry mouths in check. There was something wrong, this man’s lineage was familiar to Her. Not one of Enoch’s descendants, but an older bloodline She knew well. This simply would NOT do. Displeased, She sat back on Her haunches and glared down at the milling humans on the other side of the clearing.

Dagny peered out from behind her disheveled hair. She was frightened, and would have run, but was held tight in her father’s strong arms. The girl had buried her face in Enok’s robes a few seconds before, sure her kind cousin and his beautiful outsider friend were about to die… but she waited for several seconds without hearing anything suggesting that had happened, so she finally looked back.

Toki and Skwisgaar still stood unharmed on the stage. The Goddess had inspected them closely for a moment, and had not eaten them. Instead, She turned Her attention to the fighting between the villagers and Klokateers. She was waiting for the resolution of the battle before acting, knowing there was no point in giving Her blessing to the losers. To Her kind, losing meant extinction.

The head Elder had no doubts, no fear that things would turn out disastrously. To him, this was all as the Goddess wished it, even the swarm of black-clad and heavily armed outsiders. Many more of these had arrived, and Enok’s people were now at their besiegers’ mercy. Even worse, they’d learned to avoid the influence of Disvarrún. They knew not to look at the Goddess, keeping their visors down and eyes focused on the humans. The Klokateers herded the villagers together in the center of the clearing, while a few were trying to put out the uncontrolled fires.

The clan Elders murmured among themselves. The situation had reached a standstill. They were being held captive, corralled. Their goddess had arrived as she always did, but she had rejected the sacrifices… and now they didn’t know what to do. Enok was trying to reassure them, keeping his calm and sermonizing about the will of the Goddess.

Dagny was far more pragmatic than her father, however. She knew that unless Disvarrún favored them with a miracle, realistically speaking, Enok’s congregation was fucked.

30

Sitting with a bottle of cognac, Charles glared at the screens, each one showing one of the live feeds from his tactical Klokateers. Now that they understood the nature of the Goddess’ trance, they could avoid it, but still, now and then he’d catch one of them looking up at Her face… and he would feel the haze close in.

Ten, fifteen minutes had passed. The Goddess had simply stopped and sat in the snow while his troops rounded the Wartooths up and subdued them. He’d ordered his men not to use deadly force if possible, and thus far, not a single shot had been fired. After a brief search, Alpha had been found in the woods. The heavy snows had proven too much for some of the trees, and a large cedar had lost a bough to the weight, the heavy branch and its load coming down on the already prostrated Gear, burying him and knocking him out. He’d recover. The two bodyguards, however, were still missing.

The wait was becoming the most horrible thing Charles had ever had to endure. Sitting and watching with nothing to do. Each minute brought the Norwegian army closer to helping them, but it could all end in an instant. After all this time, all this work, his world was on the brink of falling apart. Everything he’d done would be ruined. Gone.

Still, he had to keep fighting, trying, he owed it to the other three to stay calm, hold things together. If … when… it came to the worst, Charles would be there to help them through this, the emotional trauma he knew they’d go through. The surviving members of the group would have enough money to live out the rest of their days in total luxury. They could do anything, start a new band perhaps, but it wouldn’t be Dethklok. That was the kind of perfect felicity that only strikes once. Not merely in his lifetime, but ever. There would never be anything like Dethklok again.

He was certain they wouldn’t want him to manage them anymore. This wasn’t the kind of failure one could just walk away from. Charles’ life would be over. Money wasn’t a concern, he was a millionaire many times over… but the lack of purpose would wear him away.

Maybe it wouldn’t be all bad. He could retire into obscurity. Live a quiet, low-stress life and fade away from the world’s memories. Would the boys visit him, once in a while? Perhaps one day they’d know how hard he’d tried, how he’d fought for them, risked everything for them, and they’d forgive him for this. Perhaps one day he’d forgive himself.

The seventh shot of amber liquor had just slipped down his throat when the CFO got a call. It was from the chief of air control. Nathan, Pickles, and Murderface had just forcibly commandeered an airplane and gone soaring off without a flight plan. They’d tried to contact the jet’s crew on all the various channels and devices available, but there was no response. Either purposefully or not, they were flying incommunicado.

“Nooo…” Charles groaned, not this, not NOW. He couldn’t handle another disaster. In fact, he couldn’t handle this one, but at the very least he was managing to hold himself together in the face of it. And though the cognac in his stomach hadn’t fully reached his brain yet, he could feel his thoughts blurring, and knew full well it was a matter of minutes before he would be too far gone to make rational decisions.

At the very least, the manager was pretty certain he knew where that jet was headed. He sighed into the phone, “Ugh, okay… call all the airports near Lillehammer, tell them to stop the jet when it lands, uh… I’m going to need coffee. Lots… lots of coffee.”

31

As the Goddess’ fanged maws retreated, Skwisgaar snapped out of Her thrall. He yelled wordlessly at the deity, lunging forward and swinging the sword at one of Toki’s chains. After hacking at it uselessly a couple times, the Swede simply wrapped his arms around his bound bandmate and waved his blade at the great creature watching them. He knew fighting her was useless, but he refused to go easily.

“Toki, Toki!” He jostled the younger man until he too rose out of his stupor.

The rhythm guitarist looked up at his companion unhappily, “Oh, noes… Skwisgaar.” How had he gotten here? Now they were both in danger. “You gots to run away…”

He should, Skwisgaar thought. Why would he risk his life for Toki? He was a friend, the Swede supposed, but not one he should die for… and while Toki was replaceable in the band, he was not. He was the more valuable of them, as far as Dethklok went.

“I can’ts go wit’out you.” Wait, what did he just say? Ugh, stupid mouth! Stupid head! Where had such trite and pointless words come from?! He’d have never said that under any other circumstances. It must be the Goddess’ influence. She was altering his mind, making him dumb and sentimental. Anger rose in the blond, and Skwisgaar ground his teeth. He’d get them both out of this, just to spite Her!

There had to be something he could do, if he couldn’t break the chains. What about the posts? They were pine, soft wood. He flicked the sword out and it made a small nick. They could be cut through, but it would take hours. The Wolf-Goddess was watching them, there was no telling what She would decide to do, or when, or even why she was just sitting there… what she was waiting for. He had to act, had to do something now.

“Skwisgaar?” Toki’s voice was soft, and the other man didn’t acknowledge him. The young man’s head spun, he whimpered, and darkness closed in on him. It was just too much, and the younger man went limp against his bandmate, exhausted and mentally overloaded. The lead guitarist held onto his young counterpart, trying to keep him upright and defend him at the same time.

I have to do something! Can’t just stand here! Skwisgaar looked around wildly, there had to be a way out! There was always a way out! He started to hyperventilate, his arm holding the sword up trembling. At that moment, the Swede’s eyes fell on where the chains themselves wrapped around the two poles. They weren’t locked in place, but merely hook-latched together in such a way that Toki could not reach to release them on his own.

Moving to unlatch the chains would mean leaving Toki hanging helplessly, and himself without a sword, as he’d need both hands for the job, but it would be ridiculously easy after everything else he’d done that night. Nothing like feeling overwhelmingly stupid in the face of adversary to get the adrenaline going.

.

32

“Oh my god, they won’t stop calling… isn’t there a way to make these lights stop flashing!?” The communications devices in the Dethjet had started going off as soon as the plane had lifted from the ground, and hadn’t stopped since. Nathan had figured out how to turn off the Holocom and their own cell phones, but the craft’s intercom, phones, and radios were bleeping and buzzing and lighting up like a carnival ride. “Just turn it off!” He yelled at the quailing pilots.

“I can’t, my Lord, these systems are part of the jet’s electronics. I can only turn them all off by disengaging the jet’s engine battery.”

“Well DO that then!”

“My apologies, my Lord, but even if we had the ability to do that, the airplane would cease to function and would crash, we would all die.” The pilot and co-pilot stared fearfully at the singer, afraid Nathan would make one of them try to access the engine, where they’d surely be killed..

Nathan didn’t though, he got the idea and just sigh-grumbled, then stomped his way back out into the passenger compartment. There was a phone blinking on the wall between their seats, and frustrated, Nathan picked up an empty scotch bottle and smashed it to death.

_Whack smash crack crunch!_ Pickles blinked awake, “Ooah… what’re ya dooin’!?” He looked over at the ruined phone. “Err…”

“I want some peace and quiet! I need to think, okay?!” As if in answer, the intercom finally stopped beeping. Nathan took a deep breath. “Hey, where’s Murderface?” Unlike their larger and slower aircraft, this one didn’t have much in the way of places to hide.

Pickles shrugged blearily, “I’unno. Beat’room mebby?” He yawned. It was a short-lived mystery, however, as the momentary quiet was broken by outraged feminine screaming, and somewhat less feminine swearing.

Nathan looked toward the jet’s galley, “Oh god, seriously?!” Their bassist burst furiously from behind the galley curtain, giving Nathan a foul glare on his way past. The singer could hear the woman he’d gotten handy with yelling at someone else.

“Fucking bitch!” Murderface griped, storming down to the other end of the fuselage. “Sche actsch all nicshe until I get closche and then _blammo_! Knee right in the gut! If sche didn’t want me to touch her why wasch sche schmiling at me like that!? What the hell isch wrong with women!?” The tirade continued as Murderface clambered up into one of the luggage racks and curled up in there to nurse his hurt feelings.

In his seat, Nathan could feel Pickles looking at him. The question, unasked, but obvious, hung between them. “Look, he saved my life, alright?”

“Yeh, I know.” Pickles’ mouth quirked into a smile. “Sahftie.” He continued before Nathan could get pissed off. “What are we DOIN’ when we get dere, Nate? How’re we gonna even find ‘em?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh. “ The redhead fidgeted, “So… what was all deat stuff Murderface braht on th’ plane?”

“I don’t know!” Nathan grumped. He was getting claustrophobic and anxious.

“…Well when are we landin’?”

Nathan’s voice rose, “I don’t KNOW! Stop asking me shit!”

Pickles hunched in his chair, pouted. “’Key…” He went quiet for a while, looking out at the nothingness on the outside of the jet. They were passing through cloud, travelling so fast that it blurred together into an opaque smoky wall. He was anxious as well, and had been dealing with it the way he usually did, but it was hard to stay tipsy in such a sobering situation.

“So…” When the drummer couldn’t stay quiet any longer, “Wanna go fool around in th’ beat’room?”

The vocalist shook his head. He was too wound up, and not in a good way. “Not right now.” He played with his fingers, “Sorry, I just can’t stop thinking about Toki and Skwisgaar.”

“… Yer naht s’post ta tell me when yer t’inkin’ aboht other guys, Nate.” Pickles smirked.

“Not like that! You know what I mean.”

“Yeh.” He did. “Just tryin’ ta make ya smile.” It wasn’t working, so he dropped it. Hours to go in an airborne tin can… stretching out like lightbeams on an event horison.

33

Disvarrún had not killed the man standing on Her altar. She had inspected him and recoiled, Her lunar face furling in a stormy frown. Didn’t they know what they had brought Her? How dare these cowering mortals offer her such a completely unacceptable sacrifice!? A Goddess stood in their midst and they hadn’t the sense to respect Her!

This one too, Disvarrún thought, watching Skwisgaar. Two of them in the same place; this was rare and portentous. The younger one had swooned against his protector’s chest, while the tall yellow-haired man threatened Her with his futile sliver of metal. She liked his bravery, it was noble.

She had spent several minutes thinking, during which the two men on the altar tried to escape. She ignored them, they were not Her concern. Her favored people had disappointed Her, committed a grave sin. They were Her responsibility, thus She was obligated to pass judgement upon them.

Lifting Her massive head, the Goddess spoke. Her voice drew the attention of every living thing within five miles. The sound that issued from the deity’s mouth was a discordant howling and cracking, the sound of ice breaking on a river, wind screaming through barren branches and ringing through the cavernous crystalline hollows of glaciers.

Of the hundreds assembled, two people alone heard Her words, without language or articulation, and fully understood. These were Skwisgaar, and the Elder, Enok.

“You have displeased me” The Goddess said, addressing the clan elders. “You have offered me the children of my own kind. The sons of Gods, that I should slay them. This is betrayal or stupidity, and I should suffer neither. I am owed blood. Please me, that I should not destroy all that you hold dear this night.”

At Her feet, Skwisgaar paused in his efforts to unlatch Toki’s chains. ‘Sons of Gods?’ he thought. Him and Toki? He looked down at his unconscious companion. It was a weighty tidbit to think about, and just then wasn’t the time for it. He got the rest of the hooks unlatched and the younger man slid down onto the dais. By now Skwisgaar was pretty sure the Goddess didn’t want them, but he gathered up his sword as he returned to Toki’s side, their fates still unsure.

Within the crowded circle the Klokateers had made to corral the people of Ulvetann, the elders gathered and spoke in a private dialect. Some decision was reached, and Enok said loudly, “Let me pass!” In English, and then in Norsk. The clan’s head elder moved forward and both the villagers and the Klokateers moved aside for him. Enok was not walking alone, however. He kept his youngest daughter at his side.

Dagny stumbled in fear, held tight by the wrist. She didn’t know why her father was dragging her along as he approached the goddess. Of course, she didn’t know what Disvarrún had said, her demand for payment. The young woman had neither God’s blood in her veins, nor the blessing of the deity, as her father had been given when he was appointed leader.

Enok addressed the Goddess, speaking formally in old Norse, “_Take this life and bless us, _Disvarrún_!” _He pushed his daughter forward, and Dagny tripped, falling to the scorched and muddy earth. She cried out, struggled to stand up, only to be pushed down again. “_Our fortunes are yours to cast._”

“_Yes, they are_.” The goddess agreed, a wail of wind. She approached the Elder and his daughter. He is offering his own child, She thought. This has always been considered the most valuable of sacrifices, though the worth isn’t in the child’s youth or innocence, but in the loss, the pain of giving one’s child away to die. Enok showed little pain, his face was stony. He had several other daughters, which he saw as his genetic investment. The death of one would be only a minor detriment to his legacy.

Disvarrún smirked in disdain. Loss is what makes an offering worthwhile, and loss is what these foolish people would feel. She lowered her head above the screaming girl and her father. Her fanged mouths stretching open wide to seize Her prize. But when they darted out to claim flesh, they took not Dagny, but Enok, who screamed as he was torn into and lifted from the earth.

Keeping her head down, Dagny could hear her father’s protests. He kept screaming ‘No! No! Not me!’, as the Goddess turned and carried him back into the woods. The cries continued to echo through the pines, fainter and fainter until she couldn’t hear him anymore, and the girl broke down into sobbing.

With the Goddess’ departure, the chill winds calmed, the snow stopped, and the sky cleared, letting the full moon shine down. The grounds were a mess of broken and burned furniture and ornaments and ruined food, and several people had broken arms or ribs, but only once had blood been shed. It marked the spot where Enok had stood, a crimson streak that followed the direction he’d been carried away.

Twenty-six seconds later, the Norwegian army arrived.


	4. Sections 34-38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here it wraps up.

Part 7

34

Back at Mordhaus, Charles could see the red caps and camo jackets of the Norwegians as they emerged onto the scene. The scathing headlights of a dozen military hummers flooded the church grounds with light, and the last scattering members of the Wartooth clan were seized as they ran. The soldiers quickly took control of the situation, putting out fires and searching the church and its grounds for people still hiding. The villagers were taken into custody, every last one of them, mothers cradling infants and bent-back elders alike – It wasn’t merely an arrest, but an evacuation. There was a storm coming, possibly the worst the area had seen in a century, and their little valley wasn’t safe.

Many would be questioned, however, and charges would be laid. Some would be jailed, but for the people of Ulvetann, whether imprisoned or not, there would be no more hiding from the outside world; their way of life was over.

Klokateers surrounded the two exhausted guitarists and escorted them away, supporting the half-awake Toki and guarding Skwisgaar, who walked with his head held high. A young woman in mud-caked and bloodied clothing ran after them. The guards stopped her as she approached, but then Skwisgaar said something and they let her through. She spoke, he nodded, and she stayed with the musicians as they got into the car that would take them back to Lillehammer.

A call came through from the Norwegian army. The soldiers had turned up the corpses of Charles’ missing guards. They’d been killed like animals, their throats slit, and left in the cold cellar beneath the church-house to freeze. The manager frowned, mentally adding murder to the list of charges to be brought against the villagers, but it would be hard to pin the crimes on specific individuals. They were like dolls off a machine; all so horribly alike.

Charles watched the feeds for a few more minutes, but most of them showed tired Klokateers going back to their vehicles. His head still spun, equal parts from liquor, coffee, adrenaline, exhaustion, and relief. The crisis had ended, just like that, and now there was so much to do. He had 65 Klokateers attending his two guitarists, all of whom needed instructions and lodging for the night, in Lillehammer, at the height of the ski season.

In the meantime, the jet with the other three members of the band on board had landed, and, as planned, had immediately been contained and locked down, resulting in an abrupt end to the radio silence. Nathan was bellowing at the ground crew, demanding he and his bandmates be let out of the plane. It was a matter of life and death, the singer insisted, Toki and Skwisgaar were in peril, and only _they_ could rescue them! The big vocalist seemed to have no end of stamina or rage, and he just kept yelling into the mic, telling them whoever was responsible for this was going to die, horribly and painfully and with lots of crunching sounds. An hour passed, and eventually the airport director flipped to another frequency, cutting Nathan off.

Mercifully, the manager finally called and told them the situation had been handled, they could let the three musicians out of the jet, that a car would be sent to pick them up momentarily. Charles would take the blame for their temporary detention, for which he’d make up some excuse about security threats, he knew they’d calm down and forgive him. They’d been through this before.

With shaking hands, Charles poured himself another coffee. It was over. He could let himself relax, but at the same time, he was unable to. His body ached and his mind fluttered around like a moth in a jar, full of questions and confusion.

The Goddess had taken the old man and left, but She was still out there. And someday she’d return, expecting another life. She had appraised Toki and Skwisgaar and rejected them both – and Charles wanted to know why. The manager already suspected his two guitarists of being more than merely human, and the way She had recoiled from them was further evidence of that. But then what? What does that mean?

They were necessary, Charles knew, all five of his boys. Each member of Dethklok was a key part of the Machine. He too, the manager had his role, he had to keep things running smoothly until the reason for all of this came to fruition. But he had only been given part of the puzzle, the whens and wheres and whys had been denied him. Still, he had been convinced, as if by the hand of a God, of the importance of his work. When it was all said and done, the world would hang in the balance

35

“Skwisgaar!” Dagny ran to catch up with the guitarist as he and Toki left with their armed entourage. She called out to him, trying to get close, but she couldn’t get past the guards. “Skwisgaar! Please!”

Hearing his name, the blond turned and saw the young woman trailing them. He stopped to look at her, and the Klokateers halted as well. It took him a moment to recognize the girl, or rather, to differentiate her from all her sisters and cousins. She was covered in mud and soot, and her face was red and tear-streaked, but he remembered her voice, her eyes. “Lets her come here.”

Obediently, the guards moved aside and Dagny stepped between them She looked up at the tall man with desperation in her expression._. “Please don’t leave me here… I didn’t have any part in this, I swear! You know I tried to help you.”_ She pleaded softly, _“Take me with you.”_

Skwisgaar nodded. He put his arm over the woman’s shoulders, and gestured to the hoods to keep moving. The guards closed ranks around them and they left the compound together.

The car they packed into was crowded, and Dagny wound up curled in the tall Swede’s lap. Toki was pressed against Skwisgaar’s side, more or less awake now, and the three of them spoke softly in Norwegian on the trip back to the airport. There were a lot of questions, and so much the girl didn’t know, but she tried to answer everything honestly. It wasn’t easy, Dagny’s upbringing taught her both to tell the truth, but also to protect her own kind. The latter was futile now, though, she knew she had nothing to protect anymore.

“_If I’m really a changeling… then where did I come from?”_ Toki asked.

“I’m sorry, Toki, I don’t know.”

The young man frowned and turned away. Somewhere out there, his parents had raised a child that wasn’t theirs. They may have given that boy all the love and encouragement Toki never had. Should he feel cheated? Even if he hadn’t been taken, some other boy would have suffered in his place. No, he wouldn’t change the past, even if he were able… but the curiosity, wanting to know who he really belonged to… that was an ache he knew would only grow worse.

Toki would have moved over, but the car was too crowded, and the Klokateers packed in with them were all business. A few of them spoke Norwegian, but none of them acknowledged or addressed the musicians or their guest. It wasn’t their place. Mercifully, the trip back to Lillehammer was a lot faster than the taxi ride out had been. The driver took no scenic routes, and with their military escort, they could ignore the speed limit. Soon the trees and hills became sprawling suburbs as they returned to the modern world.

It’s sad, Skwisgaar thought. They were being whisked away so quickly. They’d go back to their lives and try to live as if this had never happened. He considered the American members of the band. What would he tell them? What would he tell Toki? The Goddess had called them sons of Gods, her own kind. What did that mean for them? More run-ins with supernatural creatures, maybe dragons? That might actually be pretty cool. Dagny shifted in his lap and he stroked her hair. She was dirty, and smelled of smoke and sweat, but so did he. He needed a shower, a good meal, and sleep. Sad or not, he wanted to go home.

36

Toki sat alone in his hotel room. It was comfortable, but much smaller than what he was used to. There hadn’t been enough time for their manager to find them suites, so they’d opted for four rooms on the same floor, which could be guarded. There were two double beds in each room, though not all of them were being used.

The Klokateers had it far rougher, the guitarist knew. They were all packed together in a rented conference room, with thirty cots on loan from the Norwegian armed forces. Not nearly enough beds to bodies, meaning they’d have to work and sleep in rotating shifts. Still, it was better than being outside, and they had lots of coffee and danishes.

Looking up at a knock on the door, Toki got up and looked through the fish-eye peephole. Skwisgaar stood out in the hallway, and he opened his door to his bandmate. “_Hei_.”

Skwisgaar had washed up and changed clothing, he looked more his usual self again, if worn and scuffed in places. “_Hej_, Toki. Cans I come in?”

“Yeah, ofs course. _Is something wrong_?”

“No, but I wants to give Dagny her own rooms. She needs de alones-time.”

Toki nodded. He was still unsure of how he felt about bringing his cousin back with them. “Oh, ja, sures. You wants to stay here den?” The blond nodded, and Toki smiled, letting him take the other bed.

“You likes her, Skwisgaar?”

A shrug, “Dagny? I guess. She ams a littles girl, I feels sad for her.” He kicked his boots off and lay on his side, watching Toki.

“She likes you. She gots a big crush. I t’ink she wants you to be her boysfriend.” Toki smirked, “You gonna marries her?”

Skwisgaar grunted, “Noes, I don’t tink so. I don’ts want to be relatesked to yous. Dagny, she ams a damaged woman. De best t’ing I can do for her is leavings her alone.”

Toki frowned and spoke softly, “Dey’s all damageds, Skwisgaar. It is a place like dats what puts de sickness in dem.” Me too, he thought.

“It was like dats where you grews up?”

“Nej,” replied the younger man, “Where I grows up was worse. My grands-fadder’s family moveds away to de old church, ‘cos dey didn’ts like how de odders was being more moderns, whats my fadder calls lazies and wickeds. Like de telephone, and cars, and toys and candies for de childrens.”

Skwisgaar frowned, “Dere’s sick peoples in dis world.”

“Ja. But even my fadder ams had to grows up in dat place. So I feels sorry for him even d’ough I hates him, too.” Toki sighed and got up again, looking through the bags of clothes the klokateers had brought for him. “So what ams going to happens to Dagny?”

“I don’ts know dat.”

“She ams kind of likes you’s respopsibility now. You keeps her from going to jails wit’ all de odders.”

Skwisgaar sighed and lay back in his bed, an arm behind his head. “Hmmn. I don’ts know, Toki. I just wants to get some sleeps, ah? We can t’ink on what to does wit’ yous cousin in de mornings.”

Toki nodded, then said quietly, “She amn’t really mine cousin.”

“Mmn… no, she ams not.”

Without saying anything else, Toki took his shirt off and started changing into his pajamas. Skwisgaar watched for a few seconds, then turned away, blushing slightly.

Toki noticed, but he just smiled.

37

With morning came the blizzard. It had arrived early, and with such unforeseen force and quantity of snow that the airport had to shut down. This brought only mild complaints from the band, it meant they could all go back to bed and have lazy late breakfasts in their warm rooms. Pickles and Nathan were particularly content to spend the day inside, watching the snow blow by. And for Toki and Skwisgaar, it was a chance to relax and recuperate before the long trip home.

In the afternoon, the storm still hadn’t let up, and Charles had the hotel set up a teleconference. He called the boys in for a meeting, and Dagny accompanied the two guitarists, shy but unwilling to be left out. The manager was a bit leery of this, but, to keep Toki and Skwisgaar happy, he allowed it.

“Okay guys,” Charles addressed them through the large screen, “Here’s the situation. It looks like you’re going to be stuck there for another day, so just relax and try not to get into any trouble, alright? And please, please stay in the hotel.”

“Yeah, okay,” Nathan intoned boredly, representing the band as usual.

The CFO nodded, “I’m sure I don’t need to warn you about talking to anyone, especially you two.” He indicated Toki and Skwisgaar. The other three members of the band didn’t know what had really happened, and Charles wanted them home before he briefed them. “The press are getting brazen, they’ll try anything to get you to say something they can use. The jets are being prepared in the hangars, so you’ll be leaving as soon as the weather clears.”

Dagny leant over and whispered to Toki, who then spoke up for her. “She wants to know what happens to her peoples now.”

“Ah, well, Dagny… there are a lot of serious charges being brought against the people from your village.” Charles’ tone suggested he thought she deserved to be tried with the rest of them. “Conspiracy or accessory to kidnapping, assault and murder. The investigation and trials will probably take a very long time. In the meantime, Ulvetann has been completely buried by snow, nobody can get into the compound at all.”  
  


After another whispered exchange, wherein the CFO’s words were explained, Toki asked, “What abouts all ta innocents ones? All de childrens?”

The manager shook his head, “I cannot say for certain. There will have to be an evaluation of the conditions at Ulvetann, to decide if they constituted child endangerment, abuse, or neglect. If the court rules that they were being given unsatisfactory care, the children will be put into protective custody, then foster homes.”

Toki translated for the girl again, and after a tense moment, Dagny leant into her cousin’s body and sobbed against him. Petting her back, the guitarist cooed to her in Norwegian, “_Don’t cry, Dagny, it’s not so bad. They will all have happier lives with parents who won’t beat them or lock them in cold places_.”

Sniffling, the young woman murmured hoarsely, “_I’m not crying because I’m sad. I’m crying because it’s over. I lived in a nightmare for so long, and now it’s over._”

38

Dethklok’s jet touched ground at the Mordhaus airport the next evening. As soon as he’d gotten home, Skwisgaar immediately gravitated to his clean white bed and slept the jet lag away. Twelve hours later, the Swede woke up early and spent the morning watching television with a bowl of homemade, unflavored snack mix at his side.

A skewed version of their Scandinavian misadventure had escaped to the press, and by six am, every station and newspaper had their own version of it. Not a one of them knew or understood what had really happened, and thanks to their ignorance and lack of integrity, the world believed that he and Toki had been kidnapped by a cult. The relevant details had been either muddled or omitted, and, of course, there was absolutely no mention of an enormous, anthropophagous wolf-Goddess.

Skwisgaar smirked around a pretzel as he flipped through the channels and all their various takes on the story, fascinated by how a few stray facts could snowball. He didn’t notice Toki come into the room until his view of the television was blocked.

“Skwisgaar?” The younger man was shirtless, with a pair of soft blue pajama pants hanging low around his slender hips. He smiled when the other man looked up at him.

“Hanh?” The blond blinked up at the rhythm guitarist, he’d been distracted, and was startled by Toki’s sudden appearance. “Ja, what?”

Toki hung back and closed the door, “I cans talk to you?”

Shrugging, Skwisgaar knew Toki would eventually want to say something about the weeks they’d spent together, what they’d seen. He’d hoped it would take longer though, he was still chewing on what he’d heard the Goddess say, about him and Toki and the sons of Gods.

“Ja, comes on. Tells me what ams on you’s mind.” He pushed the bowl over, inviting his bandmate to take some.

Toki approached the older man, and sat down at the edge of the bed. He picked out a couple of mini water crackers and chewed on one thoughtfully before he spoke. “Dat was some crazy shits in Norsway huh?”

“Heh. Dat’s am putting it littlesy.” He felt Toki shifting on the bed, watched as the other man moved the snacks out of the way, then shuffled closer and made himself comfortable. “For me… it is goings to be a long time befores I can deals wit’ everyt’ing I saw and heard dere. But you know we gots to keeps dat to ourselves, ja?”

“Ja, Skwisgaar. I talksed to Charles today, abouts my parents, mines REAL parents. He says he will tries to find dem, but dey coulds be anyones…”

Remembering his attempts to find his own father, the futility of it, the lead guitarist frowned. “It ams not easy, I tries to find my real fadders, I hads t’ousands of men DNA-testings, and faileds.”

“We gots somet’ings else in common, now.” With a soft smile, the younger man reached over, putting his strong hand over Skwisgaar’s slenderer one.

The Swede tugged away reflexively, withdrawing as his face reddened. His face hardened, stress bringing lines to the corners of his eyes and mouth. Toki was teasing him again! He’d hoped this would be over, but they’d been back at Mordhaus less than a day, and already he was back to his old tricks. Skwisgaar’s face turned hot, his eyes stung from anger and frustration.

“You don’ts got to do dat.” Toki sighed, then in Norsk, “_I learned a lot this week. I’ve been wrong about a lot of things_.”

“Okay…” Skwisgaar really didn’t want to deal with anyone’s epiphanies at the moment, and had no clue what this one was about, but he didn’t like how Toki was looking at him, or touching him. He flinched away, only to have those deft fingers stroke up his arm. “Stops dat, Toki.”

“Nej, dis amn’t what you t’ink.” Toki smiled, leaning up as if to kiss his bandmate, only to have the other man push him away.

“Gwuh, Toki! I am serious! Cuts it out!”

“Why? I know you wantsed dis. It ams why you comes to Norsway wit me. You wants me, don’t you?” Toki pouted, “_And I know I haven’t been fair to you. You deserve to be treated better_.”

Skwisgaar frowned. He’d been that obvious? “Maybe I did… but treatsing me better doesn’t mean…”

“I’s not teasings now, no more games, I promise. Tells me what you wants, I’ll does it… you know I’ll sucks you’s dick.” Toki licked his lips suggestively, and his bandmate twitched. He’d made the offer before, but under different, more dismissable circumstances, and Skwisgaar had always ignored it. “You wants dat, ja?”

“I don’ts know!” Pushing the younger man away, Skwisgaar rolled out of the bed, “You can’ts just does dat to me! Not justs… after all dat.” He no longer knew how he felt, what he wanted. His stomach knotted and he paced while Toki watched him.

“Please? You’s stuck in my head, and I need to gets you out. I needs for you to gives me help. Please don’ts makes me leave.” He pleaded, sulky and wet-eyed. Well-practiced at the art of manipulating through guilt, he could see the other man struggling already.

Perhaps it really was his nature to want something only when he couldn’t have it, but Skwisgaar no longer felt that eagerness he had set out with. He’d wanted to conquer Toki, to break him and teach him, dominate him, violate and corrupt him… but that was before. There was just so much to think about now, so much confusion. Shaking his head, the blond sighed. “I don’t wants it anys more. It’s ams differensk now. I’s sorry.”

Toki bristled, sputtered and folded his arms, his first reaction was anger. This wasn’t fair! He knew Skwisgaar had wanted him, and he finally realized he’d been in denial, understood how he’d been mercilessly teasing the other man. He’d admitted to himself that he had an infatuation, and he was sure that by letting Skwisgaar have him, he could sort out how he really felt… but he was being turned away! Skwisgaar, who’d sleep with anyone, was turning him away!?

He glared daggers at the blond, who just sat there placidly, an expression of concern and sadness in his fine-boned face. Toki sighed. It was true, what Skwisgaar was saying, a lot _had_ happened, a lot of buried crap had come to light. The way he felt about the older man had changed, so why should it be any surprise that the way Skwisgaar felt about him had changed as well? His anger turned to embarrassment as he calmed down, and Toki nodded compliantly, “I’s sorry too… Dis was a mistake, I will goes.” He got up, pulling at the loose waistband of his pants self-consciously.

“_You don’t have to leave_.” The Swede said quietly, “I has somet’ings I want to talks to you about.”

Toki sat down again, quietly. He didn’t say anything, but nodded for his companion to continue.

Pick your fights carefully, Skwisgaar thought. “_When you were passed out, lying in front of the Goddess, I was there, and She said something about you and I_.”

“_You heard Her talk? Everyone else who was there said She just screamed_.”

“_She spoke_.” Skwisgaar said, “_But it was confusing. She said that She would not kill us because we were special… Both of us._” Which was true enough, if not her exact words. “_You and I were fated to know each other”_

The Norwegian blinked, flushing. They were fated to be together? “Den… why does you turns me away now? After all de times you tries to gets me to does dis wits you?”

The lead guitarist gave a half-smile, he wished things were as simple as Toki saw them. “_I think we were meant to be like brothers, not lovers. That’s why we fight so much.”_

“Oh. Ja, sures…” Toki murmured. That sounded reasonable, but it still stung terribly. His newly-discovered feelings were only going to get worse, there was just no way he could let it go that easily. But Skwisgaar had just told him pretty bluntly there’d be no dealing with it the way he wanted. Maybe in time he could change the other man’s mind. There was lots of time, now. “_Maybe we should just forget it_.”

“Jaah, I’m goods wit’ dat.” The blond smirked, “You wants to watch Teevees wit’ me?” Skwisgaar waggled the remote. The other man nodded and climbed into the big bed, propping himself up with a couple of pillows. Skwisgaar settled back again, and, in an unusually charitable mood, he let Toki pick the channel.

-Fin-


End file.
